Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, with respect, that is not what I asked. I asked how many volunteers were still working person to person on adult literacy. It is the colleges' takeover that has removed so many volunteers from the system. How many volunteers are still working thus?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the Law Lords contribute significantly to scrutiny and debate in this House. The Government believe that the quality of this House's work will continue to be high when the Supreme Court begins to sit, as it will continue to have access to Members of the House who have experience and expertise in the law, including retired judges.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I can see no objection whatever to retired Lord Chief Justices, not just from England and Wales but from Scotland and Northern Ireland, coming to this place; equally in relation to retired Supreme Court justices. We made provision in the Constitutional Reform Act for the Lord Chief Justices of the three nations be able to address the House, so that we could be informed by them. I remain of the view—as do the Government and as does Parliament—that when you appoint someone as a judge, you appoint them as a judge and not as a Member of the legislature.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
	LORDS AMENDMENT
	[The page and line references are to HL Bill 58 as first printed for the Lords.]
	8: Insert the following new clause—
	"REGISTRATION: PERSONAL IDENTIFIERS
	(1) The 1983 Act is amended as follows.
	(2) In section 10 (maintenance of registers: annual canvass), after subsection (4) insert—
	"(4A) Subject to subsection (4B) below, the information to be obtained by the use of such a form for the purpose of a canvass shall include—
	(a) the signature of each of the persons in relation to whom the form is completed, and
	(b) the date of birth of each such person.
	(4B) The Chief Electoral Officer may dispense with the requirement mentioned in subsection (4A)(a) above in relation to any person if he is satisfied that it is not reasonably practicable for that person to sign in a consistent and distinctive way because of any incapability of his or because he is unable to read."
	(3) In section 10A (maintenance of registers: registration of electors)—
	(a) after subsection (1B) insert—
	"(1C) Subject to subsection (1D) below, an application for registration in respect of an address in England, Scotland or Wales shall include—
	(a) the signature of each of the persons to whom the application relates, and
	(b) the date of birth of each such person.
	(1D) The Chief Electoral Officer may dispense with the requirement mentioned in subsection (4A)(a) above in relation to any person if he is satisfied that it is not reasonably practicable for that person to sign in a consistent and distinctive way because of any incapability of his or because he is unable to read.";
	(b) in subsection (5), at the beginning insert "Subject to subsection (5A) below,";
	(c) after subsection (5) insert—
	"(5A) A person's name is to be removed from the register in respect of any address if—
	(a) the form mentioned in section 10(4) above in respect of that address does not include all the information relating to him required by section 10(4A) above; or
	(b) the registration officer determines that he is not satisfied with the information relating to that person which was included in that form pursuant to that requirement.";
	(d) in subsection (6), after "above" insert "or his name is to be removed from it by virtue of subsection (5A) above,"; and
	(e) in subsection (8), after "5" insert ", (5A)".
	(4) In section 13A (alteration of registers), after subsection (2B) insert—
	"(2C) Subject to subsection (2D) below, an application for registration under subsection (1)(a) above in respect of an address in the United Kingdom shall include—
	(a) the signature of each of the persons to whom the application relates, and
	(b) the date of birth of each such person.
	(2D) The Chief Electoral Officer may dispense with the requirement mentioned in subsection (4A)(a) above in relation to any person if he is satisfied that it is not reasonably practicable for that person to sign in a consistent and distinctive way because of any incapability of his or because he is unable to read.""
	The Commons disagree to this amendment for the following reason—
	8A: Because it is not appropriate for personal identifiers to be collected as part of the registration process for all purposes

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do not insist on its Amendment No. 8, to which the Commons have disagreed for their reason 8A.
	I was re-reading in Hansard my contribution at the previous stage of the Bill when we talked about why we were dealing with personal identifiers in the way that we were, and I start today by going back over the reasons that I gave in your Lordships' House on that occasion. We all accept that the passage of this Bill has been an enjoyable experience in terms of our ability to work together in Parliament to tackle issues of electoral administration. We all agree that our democracy is very precious and that, when looking at the changes that we might make in electoral administration, we must do so with great care.
	We considered personal identifiers, and noble Lords will recall either from our previous debates or from reading Hansard that we looked at two possibilities of what might be done about the issue. First, we considered whether to pilot; we talked about the possibility of piloting some form of personal identifier in up to 10 areas. There were many discussions, both in your Lordships' House and in another place, and in the end it was felt that there were significant difficulties, which noble Lords accepted, so the idea was dismissed and removed from the legislation.
	We also considered the transitional arrangements and the idea that individuals could determine whether or not they wished to give additional information. I noted in my last speech on this subject that there were two significant difficulties with that proposal. The first was that it would make the form that had to be filled in potentially more difficult to understand. People would be given a choice: "Do you wish to give this information or not? You do not need to". We felt that that could create more difficulties for people in understanding what they were filling in. The second and significant problem with a transitional scheme is that only those people who choose to will give information. Although you may learn something about that self-selected group of people, you learn nothing about the people who do not give the additional information. Our concern is that that would lead us into difficulties in making sure that the register was as up to date and accurate as possible, and that people were not deterred from registering, which is a significant issue.
	We were then presented with an amendment, which originally came from all sides of your Lordships' House but was eventually tabled by my noble friend Lord Elder, who is in his place. That enabled us, through taking forward the postal voting proposals, to have a universal test bed of a personal identifier, which would give us the opportunity to see what happens when we ask people for additional information. All members of your Lordships' House agreed that this was a useful proposal, and from the Government's perspective it enables us both to look at the security around postal voting, which is an issue of grave concern, and to have a real test bed around personal identifiers. I am delighted that the consensus in your Lordships' House and outside, as we had the opportunity to discuss this at length, was that we should take this forward.
	The difficulty with the amendment that was presented and accepted in your Lordships' House, but which has now returned to us from the other place, was what would happen if we made personal identifiers universal. The Government feel strongly that that must be considered with enormous care. The only information, as I said before, is experience in Northern Ireland. I shall not reiterate all that I said before, except to say that we know that there were significant issues about what happened to the numbers on the electoral register. Indeed, legislation is currently going through Parliament to deal with some of the concerns that were raised.
	That is the only experience that we have and it shows that there were difficulties. To move directly to a system of universal personal identifiers is something that we must consider very carefully. The Government believe that we should do so only when we have the knowledge and experience that can be given to us by the amendment that was passed in your Lordships' House and accepted in the other place, and which was tabled by my noble friend Lord Elder, and, I know, supported and probably drafted by both the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham and the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. I think that I described them as a significant trio, which indeed it is.
	We are in the right place in this set of circumstances to have a test bed. I say that because I believe that we should move carefully with our democracy to make sure that we do not cause difficulties by chance. Of course there are security issues about which noble Lords are worried. I reminded myself that in the Bill there are 10 ways in primary legislation and five more that will come in through secondary legislation. We need to test the effects of all the proposals. They are significant and are designed to tackle some of the issues that noble Lords and the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, have raised as concerns.
	We are also, as my honourable friend Bridget Prentice made clear in another place, keen that discussions of what happens as a consequence of this Bill do not end with the passage of the legislation. Rather, we have said that it is absolutely right for some sort of post-legislative review: the opportunity for both Houses of Parliament to carefully consider the consequences of the legislation and to revisit and review how effective it has been.
	My honourable friend Bridget Prentice talked about the role of the Constitutional Affairs Select Committee, and we will be picking this matter up with the right honourable Alan Beith as chair. I would be keen to see Members of your Lordships' House take part in that. There is no reluctance on the Government's part to involve all parties in discussions about how this legislation works. Our democracy belongs to all of us. We would want to take that forward as quickly as possible, and we hope that it will in some way ensure that noble Lords understand the relevance and importance of this legislation, and the commitment of the Government to work across parties to determine that we have the best possible legislation in place to tackle all the issues that we have discussed at all stages.
	I am conscious of the amount of work that already exists for administrators within this legislation. We have had to look carefully at ensuring that the burdens that we put on them to implement everything in this legislation are appropriate. I am mindful of ensuring that we do not add to them.
	I have written to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, about time, because there is an issue with getting this legislation on to the statute book so that we can bring in everything within it. I do so in the spirit of giving information—nothing more than that. However, it is important that, when noble Lords make decisions on this Bill today, they understand the consequences of delaying the legislation. It effectively means that measures that we would have brought in later this year will not be brought in until 2007.
	I have said everything that I want to say, because I am conscious that noble Lords have heard many debates on this subject. I hope that your Lordships will accept the good will and intent of the Government. We are clear that we wish to see the opportunity, through the amendments of my noble friend Lord Elder that have been accepted, to look at the question of personal identifiers. We wish to involve Parliament in the process of examining everything in this legislation, which will help to keep the votes secure and ensure that people can exercise their democratic right. I hope that noble Lords will also accept that to add something untried and untested is potentially difficult and dangerous, and could damage our democracy. On that basis, I hope that noble Lords will accept the Government's view.
	Moved, that the House do not insist on its Amendment No. 8, to which the Commons have disagreed for their reason 8A.—(Baroness Ashton of Upholland.)

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: After the previous excitement, the Committee will be pleased to know that this is a probing amendment.
	Clause 1 and Schedule 1 establish the National Policing Improvement Agency, which will replace Centrex and PITO. My amendment would add the Police Standards Unit to the list of bodies to be abolished by Clause 1(2), organisations which are, in practice, to be absorbed by the proposed National Policing Improvement Agency.
	I am well aware that as the PSU is not a statutory body it cannot technically be abolished in the fashion my amendment would suggest—hence it is a probing amendment. However, I hope my amendment will provide us with an opportunity to discuss the role of the PSU and whether it should be included within the new agency, and to consider the plethora of other bodies that will continue to direct and give guidance to police forces and authorities despite the creation of the new agency.
	The proposed establishment of the new agency has, of course, received broad support from many quarters. This support, however, is not free from caveats. The Minister informed us at Second Reading that the agency would help to rationalise the national policing landscape and inject new dynamism into support for operational policing, predominantly by subsuming some of the complex web of agencies that are currently supporting the service. It plans to bring together not only functions currently undertaken by PITO and Centrex but aspects of the work of the Home Office and ACPO—the Association of Chief Police Officers—in an aim to support and drive policing improvement. Sometimes when I look at the language so far used at the various stages of this Bill, both in this House and another place, and see the myriad of various titles of organisations, I wonder how on earth people keep abreast of them when they read our deliberations later.
	There are numerous organisations that assess police performance which are excluded from the agency. As well as the PSU, there is also the Audit Commission, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and local and regional government. As the Police Federation has highlighted:
	"all of these organisations require their own unique set of figures and information which creates a bureaucratic strain on forces, moreover there is a considerable degree of overlap between them which can lead to costly duplication of effort".
	Members of the Committee will recall that the Home Affairs Committee in another place noted that,
	"overlapping remits can paradoxically create holes through which important work may fall".
	I also recall that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, whom I see in his seat, wondered at Second Reading,
	"whether we should not bring more of these functions together to ensure that all the levers are available for an agency that was designed to improve policing practice"—[Official Report, 5/6/06; col. 1061.]
	I agree with him on that. I do not discount the valuable work that the PSU has achieved, but we need to ask ourselves whether we need a separate standards unit and an improvement agency at the same time.
	The PSU measures and compares police performance, identifying and disseminating good practice across the country. Meanwhile, one of the stated aims of the new agency, in addition to driving police improvement, is to,
	"ensure that national policing best practice is identified, evaluated and understood by police officers and police staff".
	That is a clear duplication of objectives and effort.
	How are the two bodies supposed to carry out these very similar functions without overlap? If, by chance, they produced work on the same issue, whose recommendations should be seen as paramount? Whose should be preferred? It is not unknown for there to be confusion about who is responsible for certain matters—the very problem that this part of the Bill is trying to address.
	If the PSU is not to be subsumed by the agency, then what of the suggestion of the Home Affairs Committee in another place that it would be desirable, even inevitable, that the inspectorate and the standards unit should eventually be merged in the continued rationalising of the tangled web of agencies? No doubt we will return to the inspectorate later in the Bill.
	The debate in another place only highlighted to me that we need further to address the extent to which the agency, the PSU and HMIC—within the new joint inspectorate that the Government plan—will overlap. Indeed, there seems to be some confusion between the former and current director of the PSU about the role and positioning of the organisation. Dr Kevin Bond, the former director, stated that the unit was created to act as a catalyst in the police service and that the proposal to merge the unit and the HMIC made sense. Yet the current director, Paul Evans, has said that the unit works out of the Home Office and that the constabulary is independent.
	I should be grateful if the Minister could outline how these various organisations plan to work together in practice. Will there be formal memorandums of understanding and monthly meetings to co-ordinate the work? Will they be allowed to share work or set up joint ventures? How will there be effort without duplication of effort and ability? I beg to move.

Lord Waddington: This may be a probing amendment, but it is none the worse for that. I was certainly glad to see it on the Marshalled List because, during my Second Reading speech, I had a few words to say about the Police Standards Unit. We are entitled to know a little more about what it is up to. I gather that it produced the booklet Hate Crime: Delivering a Quality Service. I would quite like to have a better idea about what that booklet says.
	Does the Home Office generally and the Police Standards Unit in particular accept any responsibility for the series of ridiculous investigations following complaints about allegedly homophobic and racist language? Members of my party are not the only ones to be concerned about too much attention being paid to politically correct causes. I direct the Minister to an article in the Guardian on 18 January by Jonathan Freedland. He suggested that some police officers do not seem to recognise the difference between a hate crime—a conventional offence of violence but one in which the violence is motivated by bigotry—and an incident in which language has been used which has been viewed by some people as racist or homophobic. Of course, there is all the difference in the world.
	Is the Home Office encouraging the police in this area? Does this error arise from bad advice given by the Police Standards Unit in the booklet to which I have referred? If it does not arise as a result of bad advice emanating from the Home Office, will the Government please explain and justify not only one or two cases where the police seem to have wasted their time on completely frivolous investigations, but a whole course of conduct which seems to extend to police forces all over the country?
	I remind the Minister that we have every right to be concerned about the questioning of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester after he made perfectly reasonable comments on the Church's teaching regarding homosexual acts. We are entitled to hear how it came about that Anne Robinson was questioned about allegedly anti-Welsh remarks as if she were about to commit some dreadful racist crime and start killing people because she had anti-Welsh motives in her makeup. We are entitled to ask how it came about that a respectable person such as Lynette Burrows was questioned by the police as if she were a common criminal after her comments on gay adoption on BBC Radio Five Live. We are entitled to ask how it came about that Sir Iqbal Sacranie, head of the Muslim Council of Britain, was investigated by the police after he had told the "Today" programme that homosexuality was not acceptable and should be viewed as a medical problem. Why was he treated like a common criminal about to use violence against people because he did not like their sexual orientation? It is almost too crazy to believe that it could have happened in this country.
	What about the journeying of officers from North Wales to investigate whether Lance Price had witnessed a hate crime committed by the Prime Minister as if the Prime Minister himself, shouting at the TV screen at the time of the Welsh Assembly elections, was a threat to public order? It is almost too crazy to believe that any chief officer of police would have directed officers to come down from Wales to carry out an investigation into the conduct of the Prime Minister. How has it happened? Is this the result of bad advice from the Home Office? If it is not as a result of that, how is it happening? Has the Police Standards Unit anything to account for in its behaviour?
	Then there was the gay horse incident at Oxford, when an undergraduate who said to a police officer, "Do you realise your horse is gay?", found himself arrested under Section 5 of the Public Order Act for making homophobic remarks and spent the night in the cells. We can smile at that and think that it is funny, but any police officer who has learnt anything about the law must have known that that undergraduate had not committed any offence at all. He was not threatening people with violence; all that he was doing was making what they took to be a tasteless remark about homosexuality.
	Lastly there was the case of the couple in Fleetwood who put in a call to the Wyre Borough Council to ask if they could display evangelical Christian literature in council buildings to counteract what they regarded as an abundance of gay rights material. They finished up being investigated by the police.
	When you look at all those incidents together and add up the police time wasted, you really are forced to the conclusion that chief officers of police throughout the land seem to have got completely the wrong end of the stick with hate crimes. Why have they got the wrong end of the stick? You have all these units in the Home Office that are supposed to be advising them which is the right end of the stick, yet they get the wrong end of the stick. I suggest that it is about time we looked at what sort of advice is coming out of the Home Office and the Police Standards Unit.
	It is clearly an insult to the public that time should be spent on these matters when some forces are saying that they have no time to investigate shoplifting. It really is an insult to the public when one reads of the police in Hull screening out theft, criminal damage, common assault, harassment and non-domestic burglary because they have to meet Home Office targets. The question is, when behaving in this ridiculous fashion, were the police trying to implement what they thought were government policies and priorities? Were they following advice given by the Police Standards Unit in its booklet Hate Crime: Delivering a Quality Service? If so, the sooner that the unit is dissolved the better.
	Perhaps in her closing remarks the Minister will say whether I have got the wrong end of the stick or the police have got the wrong end of the stick and what the explanation is for these bizarre investigations and the complete waste of police time involved.

Lord Dholakia: I support the amendment, as my noble friend Lady Harris, said, but I do not necessarily subscribe to the examples given by the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. I am aware of the extent to which police have taken a very high profile on hate crimes. There are bound to be occasions from time to time when things will not necessarily work out, but it is to the credit of the police and other agencies that this has now been highlighted as a successful example in which there have been more and more prosecutions.
	My main concern, in which I support the noble Viscount and the noble Baroness, is whether we need so many organisations to monitor, inspect and audit. It would be helpful if the Minister could indicate whether there is co-ordination between different agencies and whether regulatory impact statements are available to see how successful they have been. Overall, any government and any Minister would welcome abolition of a particular body, as it would save them the resources that they are always complaining about. So I certainly support the amendment.

Lord Monson: The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, said he disagreed with the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, and thought there was some merit in continuing to work against hate crimes. No doubt, but none of the examples the noble Lord cited were actually crimes. They may have been offensive to someone, but none of them would have had the slightest chance of being prosecuted if they had been taken to court. The police were intimidating people in the knowledge, I am sure, that they could not prosecute them successfully.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I shall deal first with the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. It is a wonderful privilege to give advice. Whether that advice is taken and used judiciously with skill and judgment is something else. If we had a recipe for imparting and applying judgment with consistency, I can promise the noble Lord that I would be first in the queue to acquire it so it could be shared among all.
	The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, is right when he says that the high profile that has been given to hate crime—I know that is not directly involved with this question, but it is right that I address it—has been very important. Although the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, highlights issues that may need correction, I am confident that he accepts that there have been the most distressing and quite disgusting cases where individuals have been pilloried, abused or threatened as a result of hate, and I know that those are things that the noble Lord, as a former Home Secretary, cannot but abhor. I would not like anyone to misunderstand the way these matters are proceeded with.
	I say to the noble Baronesses, Lady Anelay and Lady Harris, and the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, that I am grateful that there is an understanding. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, clearly said that this was an exploratory amendment. As she says, the Police Standards Unit is not a statutory body in the way that Centrex or PITO are, and therefore cannot be abolished in the same way; nor do we think there is any justification for doing so.
	The NPIA is about creating a police-owned and police-led organisation that strongly supports self-improvement in frontline policing. As such, the NPIA will not take direct control of the mechanisms for monitoring police performance, nor will the agency be responsible for police performance management at the national level. Those functions should remain firmly with the Police Standards Unit at the Home Office, though there will of course need to be a very close working relationship between the two bodies. The distinction between monitoring and improving standards is an important one for us to acknowledge, because while we would expect the unit to work closely with the NPIA in its work to drive improvement in service delivery, the Police Standards Unit continues to have a key role to play in providing my right honourable friend the Home Secretary and his successors in title with the means to identify performance variations across the service, as well as the capacity to respond to help reduce those variations and work towards parity of police service provision across England and Wales.
	Since its creation in 2002 the Police Standards Unit has demonstrably proven the value that it has added both to public access to information on policing performance and identification of performance issues and in improving performance through targeted engagement. The PSU has led on the creation of the policing performance assessment framework, which for the first time provides a more balanced view of policing performance and allows comparative assessment of forces. This has meant that we are now able to publish annual assessments of policing performance. The PSU has also driven through the Government's commitment to provide local policing performance summaries to every household in England and Wales, which started in April.
	The PSU's work on assessment underpins the ability of the Home Office to spot performance variations in areas of priority, and the unit has a unique capacity to respond in a targeted way to help drive performance improvement where necessary. For example, in 2004–05, the eight forces that the PSU worked with reduced crime twice as much as the average of other forces—11.4 per cent versus 4.6 per cent—and five of the nine largest reductions in crime over the past 12 months have taken place in forces which have been engaged with the PSU. Latterly, the unit has also worked intensively with around a quarter of forces to help them improve their performance on sanction detection rates, and again the average performance improvement in these forces has been around double that of the average of other forces—4.4 percentage points versus 2.3 percentage points—between September 2004 and November 2005. The Police Standards Unit also played a key role in the recent highly effective alcohol misuse enforcement campaigns and co-ordinated work across all forces which has helped address alcohol related violent crime.
	There are elements of the Police Standards Unit's current work that may sit better with the NPIA in the future, in particular some of its remit to identify and disseminate good practice; for example, the work it is doing around development of automatic number plate recognition—ANPR—and video identification. As the Police Standards Unit already works with some of the NPIA precursor bodies on good practice issues, it will continue to work with the NPIA proper to ensure the appropriate home for the relevant functions.
	However, the obvious benefits to policing in this country of addressing crime appropriately and having the Police Standards Unit as a central resource able to respond rapidly to performance priorities clearly outweigh any case for its removal. We hope that the NPIA will start in April next year.
	I understand the concern that Members of the Committee have raised about duplication. I reassure them that we are conscious of that and can address it. So we have the synergy. I say gently that we have learnt that working in partnership in a unified way in a common structure and framework has greatly assisted performance. We shall continue to work in a collaborative way for that purpose. We have indicated in the other place that it might be helpful to provide a note to Members of the differences between the two, where the overlaps are perceived to be and how that would be managed. If the Committee thinks that it would assist, I should be very happy to make a note available so that there is a greater degree of clarity on the issue.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My understanding is that it is the full-blown works, but we had better check and be absolutely certain. If the noble Baroness and other participants in the debate want a paper copy, I am sure that we can undertake to provide one.
	As I said, this is a very wide-ranging group of amendments and it is also a very well intentioned one. I entirely understand the spirit in which the amendments have been tabled and also the thinking behind them. I should say at the outset that I do not necessarily agree with the conclusions that the noble Baronesses have drawn, but we certainly understanding the spirit behind the amendments.
	We are determined that the National Policing Improvement Agency will be a police-owned and police-led body for the entire police service. As such, we do not believe that there is a need to segment funding and to have a separate revenue stream from police authorities. The Association of Police Authorities has been part of the steering group that has driven the development of the agency and it has also been part of the discussion and subsequent agreement around how the agency should be funded.
	Looking at Amendment No. 3, I find it hard to accept that the priorities determined annually by the NPIA should not be consistent with the Home Secretary's strategic priorities for the agency. It is an entirely proper function of the Home Secretary to set the strategic priorities for the police service as a whole and for national agencies, such as the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the NPIA. That, after all, is what governments are elected to do. Having set the strategic priorities for the NPIA after full consultation with ACPO, the APA and the agency itself, it would be absurd for the agency then to set its own priorities without reference to the Home Secretary's strategic priorities. It is critical that we approach the strategy for policing in a joined-up way, and that the Home Office, ACPO, the NPIA and the rest of the service are working for the same priorities. Importantly, having set the strategic priorities for the agency, it will of course then be for the NPIA board and chief executive to determine how to give effect to them.
	Amendment No. 4 seeks to add the Police Federation and the Police Superintendents' Association as statutory consultees before the agency's annual plan is finalised. I am happy to place on record my expectation—the Government's expectation—that both organisations will be fully consulted as part of the development of the NPIA's annual plan. But I do not think that the amendment is appropriate. We are already committed in the legislation to consult ACPO and the APA as representative organisations of the other two tripartite partners. There is a precedent for limiting consultation in this way within the Police Act 1996.
	I hope that the noble Baroness will take comfort from the fact that I know that the chief executive designate, chief constable Peter Neyroud, will be consulting all the staff associations and representative bodies, including the Chief Police Officers' Staff Association, SPOSA, UNISON, the National Black Police Association and the British Association for Women in Policing. It is perfectly proper that he should. The purpose of the Bill, as drafted, will enable him to consult who the agency thinks fit, and I am satisfied that a flexible approach is the right way forward.
	Crucially, the NPIA will also consult communities, which is a vital requirement if the agency is to be genuinely focused on customers and supporting the police service in providing the kind of policing for which we and communities strive together.
	Amendment No. 5 is about the appointment of the NPIA chair. It would place a statutory duty on the Home Secretary to consult the Police Federation and the Police Superintendents' Association before making the appointment. I do not accept that that should happen. Under the legislation, the Home Secretary is already obliged to consult ACPO and the APA. That is right and proper, as it reflects the unique tripartite relationship that underpins policing in this country. However, to extend the duty to consult to police staff associations would be mistaken, as it is not a matter with which they should be directly engaged. The NPIA will be the engine that supports the tripartite relationship and drives policing improvement. As such, it should be for the tripartite partners to inform the decision-making that leads to the chair's appointment. It will then be for the Home Secretary finally to make the appointment because the Secretary of State will be ultimately accountable to Parliament for the effective leadership and operation of the agency.
	Amendment No. 6 addresses a different issue. In accordance with the standard drafting convention, paragraph 5(7)(c) of Schedule 1 would require the NPIA, before finalising its annual plan, to consult
	"persons whom the Agency considers to represent the interests of chief officers of police".
	In practice, that will mean that the agency consults the Association of Chief Police Officers—ACPO. The amendment is otiose.
	I have some sympathy for the amendment of the noble Baroness. The president of ACPO, Ken Jones, has pressed the case for the association to be recognised as a statutory consultee, reflecting its position as a professional leader of the police service, and as one pillar of the tripartite framework. That point was also made in ACPO's briefing to Peers in advance of Second Reading.
	We are ready to give this proposal further consideration, but a number of questions will need to be resolved before we come to a final view. If we refer by name to ACPO, the question would then be: why not also to the Association of Police Authorities? What should the legislation say when the issue in hand concerns the conditions of service of chief officers? ACPO is not a staff association. That role is taken by the Chief Police Officers' Staff Association, which in some cases will be the appropriate consultee. More significantly, is it enough simply to provide for ACPO to be a statutory consultee? Is there a case for putting the association on a statutory footing? In asking these questions, I make it clear that the Government have no particular answer or conclusion in mind. We will need to discuss the issue with ACPO further before deciding on the best way forward. So, while this amendment is well intentioned, I suggest to the noble Baroness that it would be premature to push the point today. I therefore ask her to withdraw the amendment in the knowledge that we will at least continue to explore the options with the Association of Chief Police Officers.
	Amendments Nos. 7 and 8 seek to ensure that ACPO and the APA will have a minimum of two representatives each on the NPIA's board. It is only right and proper that ACPO and the APA are guaranteed representation on the board. After all, the NPIA will, as I said at the outset, be a police-owned and led organisation, and ACPO and APA membership is integral to ensuring that. It is not, however, necessary to stipulate the minimum number of representatives each organisation should have, above one.
	In practice, we are trying to achieve a streamlined, dynamic and responsive board that will effectively steer the agency at a strategic level. In establishing the first appointed board, it is likely that there will be two members each from ACPO and the APA. But we do not want to be overly prescriptive about its final size and membership, both of which should be kept constantly under review, and should be flexible and responsive to change, if necessary, to ensure greater effectiveness.
	On Amendment No. 9, consistent with the commitment the then Minister for policing gave in Committee in another place, it is our intention that there will be a non-executive majority on the board of the NPIA. This will bring a wider perspective and diverse input to the oversight and governance of the agency. The Bill provides that the chief executive should be a member of the board, consistent with guidance by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments. At this stage, we do not intend that any other executives shall be members of the board. Other members will include the non-executive chair and members appointed by the Secretary of State, including the tripartite representatives. I would like to think that the noble Baroness will accept my assurance that non-executive members will be in the majority, as this will be the best way of holding senior staff to account and taking difficult decisions about organisational priorities.
	On Amendment No. 10, the chief executive of the NPIA is a critical appointment for policing in this country. As such, it should fall to the Home Secretary ultimately to make that appointment. Moreover, ensuring a successful relationship with the right balance of skills and experiences between the chair of the NPIA board and the chief executive of the agency will be crucial to the NPIA's success. This adds further weight to the importance of the appointment and, in turn, the need for the Secretary of State ultimately to make it. That said, the Home Secretary will not make this appointment in isolation. He will, of course, fully consult the tripartite partners and the chair of the board in making the chief executive appointment. Additionally, the tripartite partners will be entirely consulted on the chair appointment.
	The NPIA will be the authorities' and forces' agency. We will establish the NPIA board so that it is fully representative of the whole service. Flowing from this, we will seek collective service-wide "buy-in" to expenditure and commissioning arrangements for the entire NPIA budget through the agency's board and its appropriate committees, sub-committees and consultative groups. These decisions will need to factor in the strategic priorities that the agency is tasked with achieving. But, again, while these will ultimately be set by the Home Secretary, they will, of course, be decided upon in full partnership with our tripartite partners and the police service more widely. Rather than have one of those tripartite partners deciding on 15 per cent of the NPIA's funding, we want to give the APA and ACPO, through their representatives directly on the board, the power collectively to decide, after consultation with stakeholders and customers, how 100 per cent of the agency's budget is spent. We also want to achieve collective agreement to the NPIA's spending and, more widely, to the NPIA's overarching strategic direction and purpose.
	I believe that I have addressed most of the issues raised by the amendments, but I am conscious that, I think, noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, asked about the size of the board. The figure is not fixed, but we intend to have a board of a size that we think would work well, probably of about 12 people. The board will be more streamlined than the larger boards that have overseen Centrex and PITO. We think that a membership of 12 is about right and will work best, but there may be some flexibility at the edges. I trust that noble Lords who have participated in the debate on this amendment will read into my encouraging comments our desire to ensure that consultation is continued on all those issues. I look forward to the responses of both Front Benches on these matters.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: That intervention from the Minister was very helpful. We are all trying to get the same result. It is just that, as the Bill is drafted, it will not necessarily get us there. It may not need very much improvement. That is something that we can discuss during the rather long summer Recess—at least I hope that it will be a nice, long summer Recess; we all do, especially after this barrage of Home Office Bills.
	The Minister also responded on the method of consultation and who would be consulted. As ever, the Government want flexibility. I understand the difficulty of naming in the Bill statutory consultees—not least for the practical reason that the Minister gives that if they change their name or go out of business, how do we amend the Bill other than by new legislation? I am grateful to him for saying that the Government will consider further the point made by Ken Jones of ACPO about naming the association as a statutory consultee in a limited case within the Bill. It will be interesting to see whether discussion with ACPO bears fruit.
	Disappointingly, the Minister repeated the Government's response about the 15 per cent contribution idea. They seem to think that if one gives 15 per cent of the budget, one only ever has 15 per cent control over what is going on. That, however, was not the indication; the indication was to try to adopt the Government's preferred use of having stakeholders here, there and everywhere. I can see that I will get nowhere with this, and I shall chew on it for another day. It may never return.
	There are issues here. We will need to think about good governance to ensure that the tripartite relationship is strengthened and not unbalanced or weakened. At this stage, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: Amendment No. 14 focuses on the Government's plans to compel police forces to merge. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, and the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, for their support for the amendment.
	The Government say that they are in favour of neighbourhood policing and local accountability. We support them in that. They say they want a police service that is fit for purpose in the 21st century. We support them in that. Those are both laudable objectives. But then the Government career off on the wrong course, which cannot achieve those objectives. They insist that police forces should be merged even where local opinion is firmly against that, even where the results could be damaging for effective policing and even when they have not given the federal alternative the opportunity to prove itself. We cannot support the Government in that.
	My amendment focuses on the importance of the Secretary of State going ahead with the merger of police forces only when he has the consent of the relevant police authorities. The report of Denis O'Connor, of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, on which the Government are relying to press ahead with their forced merger, said:
	"The constitutional implications . . . are significant".
	We agree.
	In the 1960s, when police force amalgamations were last considered, a royal commission was established that took two years to report. Legislation was introduced a year later. It was recognised that the structure of police forces is a fundamental issue on which the public, the forces themselves and their police authorities need to be properly consulted. We believe that the way in which the Government are proceeding could not be more different. The previous Home Secretary's proposals to amalgamate forces were announced last September, when he gave them just four months to respond. He attempted, in the words of the Labour chairman of the Association of Police Authorities, to "bully and bribe" authorities to agree to his proposals and to meet the deadline—a tactic that backfired spectacularly when not one authority submitted to it. In February, the Home Secretary again gave police authorities an ultimatum—this time to submit proposals for voluntary mergers within just three weeks. Again, almost all the authorities concerned refused. But the Home Secretary announced that he would proceed with compulsory amalgamations regardless.
	The basis of the general restructuring is founded on the report Closing the Gap. It has been shown that the methodology of that report is in some respects fundamentally flawed. Several academic analyses have questioned the methodology and conclusions, one of the most recent being Barry Loveday's Policy Exchange report, Size Isn't Everything. The Police Act 1996 already provides that the Secretary of State can require police forces to collaborate in the interests of efficiency and effectiveness. That renders amalgamations unnecessary, yet the Home Secretary has not used those powers. It would surely be appropriate to use them now as a more cost-effective alternative to amalgamations. Yet the Government have rejected the alternative proposals for a federated model, which were put forward by police and police authorities.
	If the Government are truly more interested in addressing an alleged inadequacy in the protective services and are less interested in moving towards a national police force, I hope that they will give alternative options the opportunity to prove their worth. The Government claim that they have rejected the idea of a national police force, but their reorganisations are moving us steadily towards that model. There would be 12 police chiefs, rather than 43, who would effectively answer to the Home Secretary and not their local communities.
	There has been no accurate costing of any of these amalgamations. But police authorities are convinced that the impact will be the loss of a significant number of police officers. I am aware that yesterday the Home Secretary in another place made it clear that the 25,000 figure quoted in the press as a potential loss of numbers was the worst-case scenario, but he did not deny that there would be losses, which was interesting.
	The financial basis of the exercise is deeply flawed. Like most reorganisations, this is likely to cost more and save less than the proponents of the plan would have us believe. The federal approach would allow greater collaboration between forces on protective services. Services such as air support, firearms training and clothing and vehicle procurement, to name but a few, could be done effectively through collaboration on a formal footing. That would have the advantage of enabling individual forces to maintain their independence and local accountability to their communities.
	I am very grateful to Surrey County Council for sending me today a copy of a speech made there on behalf of a police authority, which clearly states the commitment that Surrey has to making a federal model work. It feels that it has the resources and the ability to make it work well.
	On 15 May, the Home Secretary stated that he had been told that the federal option had been tried in several areas and had not worked particularly well. That is not what I understand from the experience of police authorities. Can the Minister say where a formal federated system has been implemented and has failed? The advantage of the federal approach, as one of the available solutions, was set out in the Association of Police Authorities' paper Joining Forces, which was submitted to the Home Office earlier this year. I understand that, so far, there has been no response from the Home Office.
	Yesterday, in another place, the Home Secretary said that he would not lay an order for enforced police mergers before the summer Recess. He said that he would go ahead only with those where there had been a voluntary agreement. He also stressed time and time again that he believes that the destination of mergers across the country should remain the same. He said:
	"The destination that has been outlined . . . is the correct one . . . I repeat that the strategic direction and the ultimate destination . . . are correct . . . the destination that we want to end up at, which was identified by my predecessor as Secretary of State, is the right one . . . I do not seek another destination".—[Official Report, Commons, 19/6/06; cols. 1058-60.]
	It is vital today to try to persuade the Government to think again. Amendment No. 14 would amend Section 32 of the Police Act 1996, so that mergers can still go ahead, but only in circumstances where the police authorities make a request to the Secretary of State for a merger and the Secretary of State believes that such a merger would be right and in the interests of the efficiency or effectiveness of policing in those areas. It has the benefit of allowing mergers to proceed where it is right that they should do so, while protecting policing from enforced mergers at the will of the Secretary of State where local opinion is firmly against his direction and local requirements would not benefit from those mergers. That must be the right way forward. I beg to move.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I fully appreciate that this is an issue that, although not addressed in the Bill for the purposes of this amendment, has greatly exercised a lot of attention. I therefore understand why the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, tabled the amendment—so that we can more comprehensively tease out the issue. This is the first of three separate groups of amendments that relate to police force amalgamations. Before I get into the detailed response to the comments on the amendment, it may assist the Committee if I say a few words about where we are on restructuring.
	The Committee will be aware that, following publication of the Closing the Gap report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, the previous Home Secretary announced proposals to establish strategic forces in Wales and seven of the English regions. I am sure that many Members of the Committee are aware that a great deal of work was done prior to that report and indeed after it was issued. I know that the process has not been easy. Many of our county forces have long histories and are rightly a source of great pride. Therefore, I can understand the local attachment to these forces. Members of this House and of another place are properly raising issues around the funding of mergers, the equalisation of precepts and the governance of the new strategic police force.
	The new Home Secretary and the Minister with responsibility for the police rightly want to take time to consider these issues before deciding how best to proceed. Before doing so, my honourable friend Tony McNulty has been taking the opportunity to speak with many police authorities and chief constables throughout the country. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, that it is a little hard when the Government take time to listen and to respond, and then are criticised for having done so.
	I respectfully suggest that it was right for my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, coming newly to this post, being seized of a new brief, to take a moment or two to consult those who had been most closely connected and to take the temperature as to the speed and nature of change. My right honourable friend has made it clear that strategic mergers are the right way in which to improve protective services, but he acknowledged in a Statement in another place yesterday that more time was needed for discussion and dialogue on the best way of getting to that destination. As a consequence of this decision, no strategic forces—other than the voluntary merger in Cumbria and Lancashire—will come into existence on 1 April 2007. But I remind your Lordships that there are many in the police world who believe that mergers of this sort are a necessary step to bring us to a better informed and better position—not least as demonstrated by the voluntary merger of Cumbria and Lancashire.
	We know that there are continuing concerns about a number of issues, including cost, council tax and local accountability. We touched on all those when we discussed this matter at Second Reading. These issues need to be properly resolved. That is what my right honourable friend the Home Secretary and my honourable friend Tony McNulty are working towards. To allow time for this, the period of formal objections to the proposals already announced will be extended. We want to ensure that people are given a proper opportunity to comment and raise objections once all the outstanding issues of relevance are resolved and communicated. That will now determine the deadline by which objections have to be lodged.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, spoke about reductions in numbers of police officers. I am sure that I do not have to remind her that since this Government came into office, police numbers have gone up substantially. We currently stand at 141,270 police officers, as of 30 September 2005, which is an overall increase of 14,112—11.1 per cent—since March 1997. Police strength fell between 1997 and 2000, but we have made those numbers up and police officer numbers have stabilised and are doing well. So there has been a massive improvement.
	Our absolute commitment is to ensure that we have a police force that is visible, accessible and focused on the needs of the community that they are set to serve. I think there is total agreement around the Committee that the neighbourhood policing model is one with which we all are content and would wholeheartedly support.
	Amendment No. 14, with Amendments Nos. 60 and 61, which we will come onto later, seek in different ways to alter the process for making changes to police force areas. There are already perfectly adequate provisions in the Police Act for amalgamating police areas. Indeed, those very provisions were substantially revised by the last Administration in the Police and Magistrates' Courts Act 1994. Under the 1996 Act, which was part of the last Administration's work, a merger may take place either if the police authorities concerned have volunteered, as in the case of Cumbria and Lancashire, or if the Home Secretary considers that a merger would be in the interests of the efficiency or effectiveness of policing. It was understood by the last Tory Government that that was a necessary tool for the Home Secretary to have because of the need to secure long-term security for the people of this country and, quite frankly, because the final responsibility for these issues always lies with the Home Secretary. We know the cost of what happens when others get it wrong. The Home Secretary pays the price.
	In the latter case the Home Secretary must give notice of his intention to merge forces to the affected police and local authorities, and give them a minimum of four months to submit any objections. He must then consider those objections and respond to them before an order is made. Moreover, with the mergers initiated by the Home Secretary, the necessary order is subject to the affirmative procedure, so there must be a debate and a vote in both Houses. That accountability is embedded in the process. The period for submitting objections ensures that police authorities have plenty of time to consult their local communities and take their views before deciding whether to submit any objections.
	The new clause to be inserted by Amendment No. 14 would remove both those routes, voluntary and initiated by the Home Secretary. There would not be an opportunity to make those changes. They are the two routes by which police areas can be changed. Instead, the amendment would require both that the police authorities volunteered and that the Home Secretary considered it in the interests of efficiency or effectiveness. I have no difficulty with the proposition that the Home Secretary must be satisfied that the voluntary merger will promote the efficient or effective policing of the affected area, but this new clause would also remove the ability of the Home Secretary to initiate changes to police areas where the authorities concerned have not requested them. The Home Secretary would be impotent to introduce any change, notwithstanding the fact that that change may be deemed the most appropriate for the safety and security of this country.
	It is the function of the Home Secretary to take strategic decisions about policing. That is his traditional role in the tripartite relationship. Decisions about the extent of police areas are clearly strategic in nature, and it is therefore right that the Home Secretary is able, after proper consultation and parliamentary scrutiny, to make those decisions. The Home Secretary has stressed the need for proper discussion and dialogue. Of course it would be preferable if all mergers could go through on a voluntary basis, but provision for mergers initiated by the Home Secretary has been on the statute books going back to the Police Act 1964, and indeed before that. There remains a place for such provision. I therefore invite the noble Baroness to consider whether it would be appropriate to proceed with this in any way.
	There are some specific issues—the noble Baroness raised the issue of federation—and aspersions have been cast on the quality of the report, Closing the Gap, which was undertaken by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary. I disagree with the criticisms of that report. It is important to recognise that this is the first time HMIC's report has been criticised in this way. In a short time I am sure I will have the reports of Her Majesty's inspectorate of any description praised to the skies as being unimpeachable. We would say that this report is sound and has real resonance. Although a small number of forces below the 4,000 threshold score relatively well for their size, that does not guarantee future resilience, especially against the increasingly sophisticated nature of criminality. None of those forces currently meets the acceptable standard for protective services.
	In answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, I assure him that we have looked very carefully at these issues to ensure that we can meet the needs that have been identified regarding both terrorism and the other issues—maintenance of neighbourhood and appropriate frontline policing—at the same time as responding to strategic needs. Historically, collaboration has not on the whole been effective enough. Sir Ronnie Flanagan, head of HMIC, describes existing collaborative arrangements as "woefully inadequate" and notes that they fail to deliver sustained resourcing for preventive or development work. That is the advice that we are given by Her Majesty's Inspectorate and we take it very seriously indeed. The real risk of federation or collaboration is that these solutions would merely create additional layers of bureaucracy and lines of accountability with no appreciable benefit to the public, and potentially considerable extra expense. Any federation or collaboration option must demonstrate that it can overcome those obstacles and deliver the same or greater gains in efficiency and effectiveness.
	It is worth quoting Sir Ronnie Flanagan's full comment as Members of the Committee have prayed in aid Professor Lawrence's work. Sir Ronnie says:
	"Professor Lawrence argues that smaller forces could overcome a lack of resources by collaborating with neighbouring forces. This logical conclusion was investigated in Closing the Gap, but we found such arrangements, where they existed, were woefully inadequate. Experience has shown that neighbouring forces will provide short-term support to deal with critical incidents but collaboration fails to deliver sustained resourcing for preventative or developmental work which is a particular gap we need to address. Collaboration also raises questions about governance arrangements and the additional costs which are imposed by collaboration are not met by compensating savings".
	That is trenchant advice which any Home Secretary would be ill advised to ignore. I should make it plain that the current Home Secretary does not propose so to do.
	Strategic roads policing is one of the protective services considered by HMIC in its report, Closing the Gap. Roads policing cannot be detached from the wider day-to-day policing. Therefore, we have no proposal for a separate police force along the lines of the British Transport Police. In the case of Wales—another issue that I believe the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, raised—we have put forward proposals for a single all-Wales force. We will want to consider carefully the objections received to those proposals before deciding how best to proceed. I understand the anxiety about this issue, but I respectfully suggest that this is not the moment for us to consider the restructuring of these forces, because there is other legislation which was produced by Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. On this occasion we are content to say that they were right, and we are content for that to be the legislation which holds sway.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I support Amendments Nos. 15 and 19 and shall speak to my Amendments Nos. 16 to 18, which are grouped with them. My amendments ask the Government to justify the proposals for, first, placing BCUs on a statutory basis and, secondly, setting out the number and operation of BCUs. I tabled the amendments in response to comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, on Second Reading—credit where it is due; I see him in his place. He made some pertinent remarks at col. 1062. Last Friday, he tabled some helpful amendments to this part of the Bill which essentially address the same points that I wish to raise. I know from private conversations that he has wondered whether he is going to survive. I am supporting him, so perhaps that works for me as well. I am not used to finding myself in such radical company, but it is an interesting time of life.
	BCUs are operational constructs, and the vast majority are already coterminous with local authority boundaries. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, I am concerned about the intention behind putting BCUs on a statutory basis and its consequences. In its briefing, ACPO said that it saw the proposal as part of the hollowing-out of the chief constable's direction and control of his or her police force that the Bill advances in general. It points out that, as ever, there is an order-making power for the Secretary of State to amend the schedule. If BCUs have a statutory basis, it surely is possible that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whoever that might be at the time of the next Budget, might announce an allocation of budget to specific BCUs for specific services. Whereas we will certainly not object to more funds being passed to BCUs, we are concerned about the Chancellor of the Exchequer having a route by which the tripartite balance of influence and direction of the police service could be upset. If the commanders of certain BCUs are given specific sums of money for which they are personally accountable as statutory bodies, that is bound to alter their relationship with chief constables and the overall responsibility for the delivery of services.
	When the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, responded at Second Reading—and I note that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, is to respond today—she stated that there was only one reason why the Government were putting BCUs on to a statutory footing, which was,
	"to mandate coterminosity with local authority boundaries".—[Official Report, 5/6/06; col. 1104.]
	Even if that is the only reason for the Government's proposal in Schedule 2, a by-product of that proposal is the potential to disrupt the relationship between a BCU and its chief constable. It could have a detrimental effect on local accountability if BCU commanders have to account only to central Government for how that funding is used.
	I note that the Association of Police Authorities recommends that, to help to ensure that accountability remains local, there should be a provision by which chief officers should consult police authorities before appointing BCU commanders. I have tabled Amendment No. 18 to achieve just that. I agree with the association that this should not interfere with direct managerial accountability between BCU commanders and chief officers, but it should help authorities to maintain an oversight of policing style at that level, particularly that of neighbourhood policing.
	Whatever happens as a result of the Division a few minutes ago on the Police Act 1996, it is likely that there will be some new strategic forces as a result of voluntary mergers. Also, I would hope that some forces would act in a formal federation, at least until the Government have determined the way forward. Therefore, it is likely that the public will increasingly see the local BCU commanders, rather than chief officers of police, as the figureheads of local policing. To ensure that the views of local people are represented, it would be helpful if authorities had a voice in appointing local police leaders.
	Amendments Nos. 16 and 17 simply replace a "shall" with a "may"; as a result, police areas could be divided for operational purposes into two or more BCUs, but that would not be compulsory. BCUs could be coterminous with local authority areas, as provided for by paragraph 1(1) of new Schedule 1A, but, again, that would not be compulsory.
	The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, has tabled amendments. I added my name in support of Amendment No. 19, because, I assume, it is a probing amendment. I was intrigued by his first sub-paragraph, which gives the police authority a role in appointing the officer who is to be in command of the BCU. I look forward to hearing what discussions the noble Lord has had on this with the APA and, perhaps, ACPO. When the Minister responds, I would be grateful if he indicated whether he believes that that is an appropriate role for the police authority to play and whether the Government believe that the measure would go too far in interfering in a chief officer's operational duties in deciding how to deploy his resources.
	Amendment No. 21 refers to the distribution of resources for each BCU. I wonder what the noble Lord, Lord Harris, intends to be the basis on which police authorities would expect allocations to be made. Would it be by size of population, special needs—and, if so, what would they be—existing levels of crime or an assessment of future levels of crime as it may occur?
	All of us in our amendments refer repeatedly to "councils". I have been reminded today by my own county council in Surrey that we have not always been particularly clear whether, by "local councils", we mean to include county councils, because, as they say robustly, county council work is all about local accountability. Perhaps we should bear that in mind in our own amendments, but, in particular, it should be made clear in the Government's response. It is important that the Government justify their proposals in this part of the Bill.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I should explain as a matter of courtesy to the Committee that a short while ago I gave notice to the Front Benches and to the Deputy Chairman that I would not be moving Amendment No. 20. When listening to the Minister's response to the previous group of amendments, I thought that it would be precipitate to discuss the amendment at that stage. I want to make progress for exactly the same reasons as the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, and perhaps substantial numbers of your Lordships' House because I will not have the opportunity to watch the match tonight between England and Sweden, which I understand others may be able to do in another part of this building on a big screen—lucky them. I hope that my colleagues will let me know if there is a change to the score throughout any part of that occasion. But I am keen to make progress.
	In moving Amendment No. 22, I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 24 to 30 and Amendment No. 32, all of which stand in my name. A large number of amendments in this group have also been tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, and the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey. I welcome them all. They are all extremely useful amendments, particularly because they focus in far more detail on some of the issues that I hope to raise. I shall listen carefully when those amendments are presented, and may come back later and ask one or two questions if they have raised new issues that I have not considered when drafting my own speaking notes. This group of amendments will be one of the most crucial in Part 1. I say one of the most crucial because there are some important ones on police directions, too.
	My amendments are intended to probe the serious issues raised in Schedule 2 regarding the Government's intentions in shaping the membership of police authorities. Their role is to represent the interests of all local people, businesses and communities working with the police to secure the maintenance of an efficient, effective and locally accountable police force. That definition must be right because I took it from my own Surrey police authority's website.
	My amendments fall into six sub-groups. First, to question the extension of the Secretary of State's powers generally and whether it is appropriate to place all matters regarding membership of police authorities into secondary legislation. Indeed, I note that the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee concluded at paragraph 20 that it considered it inappropriate for the Bill to leave so much to subordinate legislation.
	Secondly, who should decide membership of the police authorities—the Secretary of State, direct election, councils? Who should it be? Thirdly, should magistrates retain their place as of right or be cast into the melting pot of selection among all-comers? Fourthly, should the chairman and vice-chairman be appointed by the Secretary of State or elected by the police authority? Fifthly, what allowances should be paid to members? Finally, the amendment argues that the regulations on this section should be by an affirmative, not a negative statutory instrument.
	The concern that underpins all my amendments is that the provisions of this part of Schedule 2 represent a constitutional change. The Secretary of State is extending his powers so far that there could be a significant shift in favour of the Home Secretary in the balance of power within the tripartite relationship between the Home Secretary, chief officers, and police authorities.
	Amendment No. 22 would delete paragraph 3, which amends in 1996 Act such that the detailed provisions for the composition of police authorities, the selection and appointment of members, the choice of a chairman and the payment of members will be set down in regulations instead of being on the face of the Act as they are now. The flexibility that that gives the Secretary of State means in effect that he can extend his control as and when he pleases by way of statutory instrument to shape police authorities. We do not accept that that is appropriate. The Home Office has suggested that secondary legislation will stipulate that police authorities will still be able to elect their own chair and vice chairs subject to a competency test and that the remaining provisions are designed to make appointments more flexible and less cumbersome.
	When the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, replied to our Second Reading debate, she said that outside London, the chairmen of police authorities would continue to be appointed by members of the authorities. Why then make the changes in this Bill? Why not leave well alone and put the appointment clearly in the hands of the police authority? The noble Baroness's assurance does not answer the fundamental objection that the balance of power is altered in the statute in favour of the Home Secretary. Future Home Secretaries might be inclined to use these powers differently. After all, there have been so many Home Secretaries appointed by the Government in the past few years that I am losing count. Who knows who the next one will be? Perhaps it will be the noble Baroness, the Minister. I am sure that we in this House would welcome that. We would trust her to carry out her assurances but we cannot necessarily say the same of others.
	Amendments Nos. 29, 30 and 32 would ensure that police authorities continue to elect their own chairmen and vice chairmen. I note that the Delegated Powers Committee report at paragraph 20 recommended in particular that the Bill should specify by whom the members and chairman should be appointed. Will the Government accept that recommendation, even if they do not accept the basic proposal that this should be in primary, not secondary legislation?
	Why should the Secretary of State impose the competency test? Would it not be better for him to leave it to police authorities to ensure that appropriate competency-based appointments and selection arrangements are in place before any member is appointed to an authority? There is then a built-in guarantee that any person elected by the authority would already have passed a competency test.
	Amendments Nos. 25 to 27 draw attention to the question of who should be members of a police authority. At one stage, the Government said that they were considering introducing direct election of all members. Will the Minister say why that idea was abandoned? Paragraph 3 provides that there will be only two categories of members: councillors and other persons. What balance will there be between the appointment of councillors and other members? How will the membership be allocated by area? In what proportion? Surely this will be of great importance after any mergers take place.
	How will the Secretary of State make decisions on how the long list of potential appointees is whittled down to a short list? Will he give his reasons for rejecting people from the short list? If not, why not? Although this is a large group of amendments, which is taking me some time to spell out—for which I apologise—I ought to insert a big thank you to the Association of Police Authorities, which took the time and care to come and brief me recently. This is one of the very points it raised in its comprehensive briefing.
	The Government are removing the current category of magistrate members. While the Home Office suggests that magistrates can continue to sit on police authorities as independent members, the Association of Police Authorities has briefed noble Lords that it strongly considers that magistrates should remain as a category of membership in their own right, not least because of the valuable expertise they bring to authorities, particularly their links to the criminal justice system. Magistrates have invaluable local knowledge, too—otherwise they would not have been appointed to their local bench in the first place. If the Government are keeping the appointments system rather than introducing a system of direct election, why throw away the guarantee of effective magisterial members? Why abandon a system that has worked well?
	Cantering towards the end, Amendment No. 24 would ensure that magistrates would therefore remain members of police authorities in their own right. Amendment No. 28 probes whether the Secretary of State should have the power by regulation to set the payment of allowances and expenses to members. Why does he wish to put control of this into central hands by secondary legislation? Surely it would be better to leave these matters to local decision-making, to reflect local conditions?
	Finally, the changes that can be affected by paragraph 3 have sufficient constitutional importance that they should only be made by the affirmative resolution procedure. I see that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee's report agrees with that at paragraph 20, where it says,
	"if the number of members is to be left to subordinate legislation, any regulations specifying a number for police authorities generally should be subject to affirmative procedure".
	Can the Minister say whether the Government intend to accept that recommendation? I beg to move.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: The amendments in this large group deal with membership of police authorities. I listened carefully and attentively to what the noble Baronesses, Lady Anelay and Lady Henig, said in support of their amendments. I particularly support Amendment No. 22, but I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 23, 24 and 31 which are also tabled in my name.
	Amendment No. 22 deals with a dangerous concept: some future Secretary of State can by a stroke of a pen irrevocably change the carefully constructed make-up of police authorities. We face the spectre of the Secretary of State taking totally unnecessary powers. What will happen if we get the larger police authorities envisaged by the amalgamations that we so vehemently oppose? They will be unrepresentative of local communities, yet, under the Bill, the Secretary of State can add, subtract or otherwise amend the membership of police authorities. That is a very dangerous concept. Alterations in authority numbers should not be made without a reasoned debate in both Houses.
	Why should the Secretary of State be able to appoint members of selection panels? How much more work does he need? He has enough on his plate at the moment and does not need to start meddling with selection panels. Every member of the selection panels that I chaired over a number of years was carefully and appropriately chosen from among their colleagues and thoroughly trained to the same standard. They knew their law. I pay tribute to the enormous help given to all police authorities in this matter by the Association of Police Authorities. Therefore, there is no need for the Secretary of State to do something that is the responsibility of the police authority.
	It is the responsibility of the members of police authorities to choose their chair and vice chair. At Second Reading, I spoke of the long battle I had when stand-alone police authorities were constructed. We had to persuade the Secretary of State that it was wrong for him to tell police authorities who should be their chair. I strongly oppose any power to change that sensible way of going about the selection of chairs of police authorities. I strongly support what the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, said on that point.
	Amendment No. 23 covers the appointment of police authority members. It specifies where they should come from and the number of members needed to fulfil the police authority's statutory duties. It is necessary to ensure that police authorities for large, amalgamated forces—should they ever come into being—have a sufficient number of members to cover a wide geographic area and do what the Government want them to do. The Government have promised that there will be places for local authorities at district level as well as at county or unitary level. I do not believe that even Amendment No. 23 will be enough. Police authorities have been successful in making sure that their members are fully representative of their diverse communities. I hope that Amendment No. 23 eventually finds favour with the Government.
	I was very fortunate in the magistrates who sat on my police authority. Their varied experience and commitment were enormously helpful, and when we had difficult times—there were some—the magistrates encouraged, enthused and played a totally non-political part in our decision-making. They played a full part in all our deliberations, and I valued their presence enormously, which is why I put my name to Amendment No. 24.
	I have already spoken to Amendment No. 31, which provides for the election of the chair. It is fundamental for police authorities.

Lord Harris of Haringey: I intend to speak briefly in support of Amendments Nos. 23, 31, 33, 36 and 38, to which I put my name, and to Amendment No. 37—to which, if I did not put my name to it, I meant to.
	The principle has been made extremely clear. There is an importance in having these matters in primary legislation, not because we have any doubts at all about the present Home Secretary's benign intent in how police authorities operate, but because, several successors down the road, if these matters are dealt with in secondary legislation, it will be that much easier to make changes that could seriously disrupt the tripartite arrangements and the balance of membership of the police authorities.
	On Amendment No. 23, it is important that there is political proportionality among the elected members—those who are councillors or, in the case of the Metropolitan Police Authority, who are members of the London Assembly. People need to understand that there is a choice between having political balance and representing areas, and guaranteeing that every district or local authority will have a seat on a police authority. You cannot do both without having enormous police authorities that are far larger than anything we are contemplating here. If each one has one representative, then that representative would be from the majority party there, and that is likely to mean that the smaller parties are not fully represented. Furthermore, sizes may differ greatly. In the West Midlands, for example, some authorities are very much larger than others.
	This is a serious dilemma and a choice has to be made about whether we are looking for political balance or for every local authority to have a representative. Simply providing for every local authority to have a representative will make it more difficult for the authority to take a strategic overview of the direction of the force and will not improve matters. There is a choice. I think that Amendment No. 23 goes correctly in the direction of political balance. The other part of the provision also is critical. It ensures that there is some representation of the diversity of the communities and the range of people who need to be represented on a police authority. It is largely through the independent members on police authorities that the vast majority of black and minority ethnic members of police authorities have been appointed. That is not universally so, but largely so.
	The points have all been made about the importance of police authorities owning the election of their own chair.
	I shall refer briefly to Amendments Nos. 33 and 38, which require that if there are changes in any of these provisions, the Association of Police Authorities should be one of the bodies consulted. Other than that, I think that all the points have been made on these amendments.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: May I say what a wide-ranging and important consensual debate this series of amendments has brought about? Some of the Government's responses have already been foreshadowed in our discussion about flexibility. I endorse the comment by my noble Friend Lady Henig that one of the wonderful things about police authorities has been that they have been non-party political, in the main. We greatly value that. All the amendments relate to the police authorities and their membership.
	Amendment No. 22 would entirely remove the provisions relating to police authority membership, although I understand why the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, pushes the point. The measures provide for greater flexibility in the appointment process by repealing the complex and cumbersome arrangements set out in the Police Act 1996. In past discussions with your Lordships, there seemed to be an understanding that there was unnecessary complexity in the 1996 Act and that it would greatly benefit from change. I do not think that what the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said about that today detracts from that general belief.
	The regulation-making powers specify that police authorities should be made up of independent members and councillor members, and that councillor members should be in the majority. It is important to remember that that is not being changed. Aside from this, they allow flexibility in the size of individual police authorities. I wholeheartedly agree with the comments made by my noble friend Lady Henig that police authorities cannot operate effectively if the membership is too large. In the longer term, we envisage that strategic police authorities will have about 23 members. We must accept, however, that the membership will vary from police area to police area and is subject to the outcome of the review of force structures, because we must reflect the needs of the particular area. I assure the Committee that the minimum number of police authority members will be 17, as now, so there will be no change in that respect.
	Our approach in paragraphs 3 and 5 of Schedule 2 is wholly consistent with the more general move to make primary legislation more flexible. As the Delegated Powers Committee has acknowledged, there are many precedents for matters relating to the constitution of statutory bodies to be left to regulations. Just in case someone thinks that we did not read the whole report properly and that we are being selective, and in order to be fair, I also refer to the next passage. It says:
	"However, a police authority has a key role to play in the delicate constitutional balance between the Secretary of State, the police authority and the Chief Constable. The composition of the authority therefore is more significant than that of many other statutory bodies".
	I wholly endorse those sentiments.
	The Committee went on to make specific recommendations. It recommended that the Bill should specify by whom the members and the chairman shall be appointed, a matter raised by noble Lords. It further recommended that if—I emphasise "if"—the number of members is to be left to subordinate legislation, any regulations specifying a number of police authorities generally should be subject to the affirmative procedure. I reassure noble Lords—and, I hope, give all noble Lords who have spoken pleasure when I say—that the Government are ready to give these recommendations favourable consideration.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 49 to 53 not moved.]

Lord Bassam of Brighton: In view of the hour, I beg to move that the House be now resumed, and, in moving that, I suggest that the Committee recommences not before 8.35 pm.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, this order is enabling legislation designed to help the Child Support Agency achieve some of the key objectives set out in the Operational Improvement Plan, which was published and announced in this House on 9 February 2006. The plan sets out the agency's aims and objectives for the next three years. It is recognition that we need to continue to maintain and improve performance while Sir David Henshaw makes his recommendations and considers and consults on the way to redesign the child support system. The overall aim of the plan is to improve service to clients, increase the amount of money collected, achieve greater compliance from non-resident parents and provide a better platform from which to implement future policy.
	In developing the Operational Improvement Plan the agency identified a significant capacity gap. Contracting out certain services will enable the agency to fill that gap, deliver the planned improvements by March 2009 and stay within the approved resource levels and spending limits. However, contracting out is not just about capacity; it is also about buying in expertise and learning from the private sector. This order will enable the agency to contract out three main areas of work: the management of clerical cases, a significant amount of debt recovery and some tracing of non-resident parents.
	The CSA's computer problems have been well documented and discussed in this House. As a result of these problems, currently around 19,000 cases are dealt with clerically. These cases need a disproportionate amount of resources. Contracting out that work will enable those currently employed in that activity to be redeployed, freeing up to 700 staff for frontline processing. That will contribute significantly to the agency reducing its backlog of new scheme applications. This is a finite area of work, with all clerical cases expected to be placed back on to the computer system by 2009 once the IT fixes have been delivered. Given that short lifespan, this area lends itself readily to contracting out. It is possible for operations to be scaled up and down easily, it is stand-alone and it needs minimal use of the agency's computer systems.
	The contractor will be required to undertake a wide range of activities in delivering the entire clerical case management process, from initial information gathering to making assessments and calculations, and then arranging collection of maintenance. The contractors will therefore need to use most of the powers currently used by the Child Support Agency. As a result, the order has been drafted to cover a wide range of agency functions.
	I now move to debt recovery. Nearly one in three non-resident parents who have been assessed and are due to make a payment fail to pay for their children. Debt accrued since 1993, as a result of non-resident parents' failure to pay, exceeds £3.3 billion. This is why the operational improvement plan has increased enforcement at its heart. We agreed funding of £30 million to allow the agency to employ external debt collection agencies to recover in excess of £100 million of outstanding debt. The contractors will enhance the agency's debt reduction capacity by undertaking a wide range of activities to recover individual debts. They will be encouraged to be innovative, within existing legislation, to recover what is due or establish a satisfactory repayment arrangement promptly.
	In England and Wales contractors will enforce the payment of debt through the magistrates' court or the county court as appropriate. This will include obtaining county court judgments, liability orders, third-party debt orders and charging orders. Contractors operating in Scotland will fulfil the same role using the appropriate Scottish legislation. It is important to stress that there will be no reduction in the child support maintenance received by individual parents as a result of using contractors. The cost of employing the contractors will be borne by the agency.
	We also intend to allow private sector contractors to use their tracing expertise to find non-resident parents who are avoiding the agency. Just under 70,000 cases have not yet been assessed on the old scheme, largely because non-resident parents cannot be traced by the agency. We know that in a number of cases, non-resident parents deliberately avoid dealing with the agency, for example by refusing to answer calls and letters, frequently moving or deliberately providing incorrect information. Such behaviour prevents the establishment of regular child support maintenance payments. So, where the agency has failed to find the non-resident parent, the contractor will seek to locate him or her and conduct interviews to capture information to enable maintenance assessments, calculations and/or enforcement action to be undertaken.
	It was necessary to draft this order widely; together the three areas we wish to contract out cover most of the functions carried out by the agency. But we have excluded some statutory functions from the order. Section 71 of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 precludes certain functions from being contracted out. These include, for example, rights of entry and seizure, and seeking committal to prison or disqualification from driving. Where necessary, contractors will return cases for the agency to progress.
	Contractors will be doing a very sensitive job so it is right that we deal only with the most reputable. The agency will use an existing departmental procurement framework to appoint contractors for debt collection and trace activity. This framework was established following a competitive tendering process. A different procurement route is being taken for clerical case management. Contractors will be selected following a competitive tendering exercise and must demonstrate a proven track record in this area of work and the business and financial capacity to deliver. Although we have been clear on the cost of the debt contract, negotiations over clerical cases are at such a stage that I cannot give figures on these costs. However, I can assure noble Lords that we would not let any contract that would cost more than retaining the work in-house.
	All successful contractors will be subject to strict codes of practice and will be required to adhere to all relevant legislation such as child support, human rights and data protection legislation.
	In conclusion, the order will support the implementation of the Child Support Agency's operational improvement plan, which in turn will deliver a better deal for the children of separated parents. I am satisfied that the order is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights and I commend it to the House.
	Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 22 May be approved [28th Report from the Joint Committee and 37th Report from the Merits Committee].—(Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.)

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the House and, more importantly, thousands of children and their parents with care, will be grateful that after nine years in power, the Government are at last doing something constructive about the Child Support Agency.
	We should remember that the CSA was set up in 1993 with all-party support, mainly because the courts, where child maintenance payments were decided, were slow, uncertain and led to low and inconsistent settlements. Under the CSA's parent Act, the Child Support Act 1991, the agency took on responsibility for calculating child maintenance, using a standard formula to ensure consistency. Our stance on this has not changed and we remain convinced that the formula approach is the right one.
	In addition, however, the agency's role was, and still is, to locate absent parents, identify their income, and secure the payment of maintenance. Although the agency is unpopular with clients—a fact admitted by the Minister in the past, and hardly surprising where absent parents who want to escape their responsibility to their children are concerned—the fact remains that it is the responsibility of both parents to pay for the maintenance of their children as far as they can. The taxpayer should become involved only where parents do not have the financial means to support them. That is fine in theory. In practice it is not the parents who, once found, accept their responsibilities and then pay the formula-assessed sums to the parent with care who concern us, it is those absent parents who just will not pay, who move around making it difficult to locate them or who may be in work one month and out of it the next—or, indeed, all three.
	It is clear, too, that thousands of parents split up and move apart, often by many miles, or even out of the country, among them two cases about which I have recently written to the Minster. It is hardly surprising, then, that in September last year 333,000 agency cases had not been cleared, and some parents with care inevitably face poverty as a result. It is probably not surprising, either, that irrecoverable debt now tops £1 billion. What I find surprising is that the agency is still chasing 100,000 fathers who will not pay maintenance. In passing, is it true that for every £1 spent on bureaucracy, less than £2 goes to the parent with care? Whether or not that is so, it is clear that the agency is snowed under and cannot cope. Indeed, it has been clear for many years. What I find impossible to understand is how a Minister who has been in post for barely a year can produce a way, partial though it is, out of the problem when his predecessor failed to do anything very constructive for eight previous years.
	It is true that the formula was simplified, and that is a plus. However, the CSA has had to run the old formula and the new one side by side, resulting in yet more chaos. Not only is £1 billion worth of debt irrecoverable, another £2 billion remains uncollected, as reported at col. 1554W of Commons Hansard of 19 January this year. The CSA statistical summary of January 2006 shows that only 61 per cent of maintenance due under the new scheme had been paid as of December 2005, compared with 72 per cent under the old scheme, so no improvement there. The Minister was good enough to refer to my next point. In 2004–05 the agency received 63,678 complaints compared to 49,215 in the previous year—an increase of almost 30 per cent. I observe that Mr Stephen Geraghty, in a departmental press release, regarded that as "disappointing". It is certainly that and there is no improvement there either.
	Now I come to the Minister's solution, which I encapsulate as, "If the agency can't do it, give the worst problems to a body that ought to be able to". In response to the statement on the CSA in February this year, I suggested that contracting out some of the agency's functions might be an answer, and I am glad to see that the Minister has pondered on that suggestion and produced the order we are now debating. At least some clerical case management, debt collection and additional trace activity are to be pursued by the private sector, and I understand from the Explanatory Notes—and, indeed, from what the Minister has just said—that pre-contract negotiations are already in being. However, I hear from the Credit Services Association that these are with the department not the agency. Why not?
	I need to be much more convinced that case management should ever be contracted out, not least because of your Lordships' Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee's comments on this order. Much as I approve of the principle of contracting out, I can see the force of its arguments, especially on the need for a single point of contact for parents. The latter must be able to speak to someone who has all the details of their case in front of them, even with contracting out: parents will want to contact the CSA rather than the contractor. It is not satisfactory for them to be referred to somebody else. Even better would be a named official whom parents could ask for every time they had a problem. Contracting out in this area will work only if we could have confidence in the agency's computer. From what the Minister has just said, he obviously cannot give us such confidence at the moment.
	Computers come with the ability to share information easily. I note that the committee prised out an expanded paragraph 7 of the Explanatory Memorandum on this point, and I am grateful to the department for providing it. The bullet points made in it show that prosecutions can, and I hope will, be made if data supplied by the agency is improperly used, not least because of the contractual obligations that will be imposed on the relevant firms.
	The charity One Parent Families has made the point that in some cases contracted-out functions may not prove satisfactory, as has happened in the past with housing benefit. In that case, some local authorities had to spend large sums of local taxpayers' money to break contracts and bring housing benefit back in-house. That would be avoided if break points were inserted into the final contracts. I would expect six months to be too short even after, say, an initial 18-month period. However, is the Minister giving break points serious consideration? Even if the contracts are successful, they will need to be handed back to the agency at some stage. If they work, and I hope they do, does the noble Lord agree that they should be seen as a temporary solution and not go on ad infinitum?
	We have not heard the last of changes to the CSA's operations. The mechanics of assessing the absent parent's income and then extracting it will have to change, and my party stands ready to help when the time is right. We await Sir David Henshaw's report with interest and we hope it is imminent, though with the myriad other things that he is doing at the moment, not least in the north-west, perhaps we cannot be so sure about that. To sum up, this is a bold step for even new and somewhat tarnished Labour to attempt but, with the caveats that I have mentioned, I wish the Minister well in implementing it.

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope: My Lords, I would also like to take part in this important debate and pick up on the point made in the peroration of the spokesman for the Official Opposition. This is an important, signal step, although this is perhaps not a very auspicious evening or time of night to be discussing it. It is important that the House assures itself of some of the background to the proposals in the order. I agree that it would be useful if the order could be put in the context of Sir David Henshaw's report. I hope that the expectation that we would at least get some glimmer of information on his direction of travel before the Summer Recess is still possible and that the Minister may be able to make some statement about that before we rise.
	The operational improvement plan is obviously a welcome attempt to improve operational efficiency during the redesign, but the two cannot be entirely divorced. That would not be sensible, and I am not suggesting that it is. The order must be seen in that context, because there are those who might be ideologically opposed to contracting out under any circumstances, and some special features of the order need special consideration in that context. I have no principled objections, any more than my colleague the noble Lord on the Conservative Front Bench does, to contracting out some of these services. But they are temporary, and some may say that this is the thin end of the wedge. We do not want to prejudice anything that Sir David Henshaw has to say, but some of the press reports that we have seen in the not too distant past have suggested that one of the options that he is looking at is the wholesale contractualisation or privatisation of the agency. That would cause me some more concern because we are dealing with very sensitive data on fractured families from financially disadvantaged backgrounds. Handing that over to the private sector without very careful consideration would be a mistake.
	If the Minister can put the order in the context of the Henshaw report, he might also, if he gets an opportunity in his winding-up speech, say more about the background that the department is facing, because there are obviously very strict financial envelopes to which this order is responding. The situation post-2008 is a five per cent cut in the departmental expenditure limits. We also have the upcoming 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review. There are the Gershon requirements, which I guess are driving some of the constraints under which the department must operate. It is right and proper that we should be very careful about spending public money.
	Some of the ways in which the changes that the order brings might impact on the staff cause concern, if only because they are bound to affect staff morale. The uncertainty that is an inevitable part of the changes is, I am sure, being addressed by Mr Stephen Geraghty in his new guise as the chief executive, as best he may. He made some comments in a recent appearance before the Select Committee in the other place that reassured me about that. I hope that the Minister will give us some assurances about the 700 staff. We cannot just move people around like pieces on a chess board; these are professional people who work very hard and do a very dedicated job, certainly in my experience, trying to make a system that is very difficult and clunky work. Like the rest of us, they have the best interests of the clients at heart. Some of the financial background to some of the cuts and what the future holds in that direction would be very useful by way of context. I hope that this is a three-year, short-term project. I hope that it will be concluded, and then we can move back into a fully functional next steps agency in the CSA as we have experienced it in the past.
	I am a bit concerned—although I may be misunderstanding this and I seek reassurance—that some of the Secretary of State's functions are going with some of the contracts. I am not an expert on privatisation, and maybe a note would be the best way of dealing with this, but I am a little worried. I can understand taking debt collection and tracing out of the CSA, because I can see that they are discrete areas of activity. As a provincial solicitor in my previous incarnation, I can see that you could construct a contract that would be foreseeable and understandable in those areas, but some parts of the individual clerical case management are extremely complicated, and I do not think they can be contracted out without contracting out some of the Secretary of State's powers in parallel with it. Qualitatively, that could be different, and we need to be very careful about trading some of that authority from the Secretary of State, under the statutes passed by this House, to contractors in a contract. I want some reassurance that the monitoring team that will look at compliance is very clear about that aspect of the contractualisation. I may have misunderstood it, but I would like some reassurance on that. If it is not possible, a note that could be shared would be useful.
	My other concern about some of the debt collection processes is that, as I read the papers that came with the order, the pilot on which the debt collection scheme was based involved only two commercial firms. I also have had some correspondence with the Credit Services Association and the like. I would be a bit nervous about scaling up a nationwide system across two different criminal jurisdictions, or common law jurisdictions in terms of debt collection in Scotland and debt collection in England and Wales, based on the experience of two pilots. I hope that one of them was in Scotland, for example. That is not a particularly extensive base on which to take things forward. I can see that there is a case, and I agree that there is no doubt that some of this work can be done better. Debt enforcement has suffered as a direct result of the fact that so much effort was put into the computation that there was no space left to follow up the enforcement.
	In that regard, the previous Select Committee in the House of Commons, which I had the privilege to chair, had one or two suggestions for the Government that are still worthy of consideration. For example, I understand what is required by primary legislation, but requiring non-resident parents to notify the CSA of a change of address is not an infringement of civil liberties too far. It would give the agency some realistic prospect of finding people without having to get specialists on contracts to chase them. That seems, as the Americans say, a no-brainer. All you need to do is make sure that people have a statutory duty when they change their domicile to advise the agency accordingly. Then all that is needed is a simple knock on the door, telephone call or letter to the new address, rather than getting the gumshoe element in from the private sector to find out where people are. That seems straightforward, so I hope that Sir David Henshaw is looking at it as we speak.
	I think that clerical management will be conducted through some of the agency's own IT hardware. I am not sure whether I have that right, but it is as I read the papers. I do not understand how that works unless we hand over some of the agency's real estate to incoming contractors for the purpose. If they are getting access to the department's computers and not bringing in their own hardware and systems, I cannot envisage how that will work in a management process. I can understand a contract being negotiated and compliance being monitored, but not how that will physically happen if the computers used by agency staff are made available to the people from the private sector who are bringing their new expertise to bear.
	I have a couple of final quick questions on the cost-benefit analysis and the business case, which has not really been established. All we know is that £30 million has been put up for that. It is a significant sum—I hope that it will make a difference over the three years—but reference was made to the consultants who came in. They must have produced some background information on which Ministers took the decision to make the order. Is it possible to see what the consultants said about that? It might be commercially confidential—I understand that you have to be careful about such things—but I would feel more secure in passing the orders, which I am sure that the House will, if I had access to what those experts in these matters said to the department.
	I also would not mind having sight of the contracts in draft before they are let by the end of July. It is not unreasonable for Members of this House to get an idea of them, whether they are placed in the Library or accessed through departments. I know that they are technical documents, because in a previous incarnation in the other House I was given access to the EDS contract that covers the whole IT process. It makes stern reading because its commercial elements must be blacked out. I understand all that, but will the Minister consider giving Members of this House access to the contracts as they stand in draft and the consultants' reports as they were provided to Ministers?
	Incidentally, how much did the consultants cost? That would be an interesting question, too. The department has been under a little pressure in the past, and it is a perfectly reasonable question. I bet that they were not cheap; maybe it is money well spent, but the House would be better informed if we could access such information.
	I conclude with the point made earlier about the experience of outsourcing housing benefit recently. Some local authorities had some singularly bad experiences of trying to get in technical help to do backlog work on housing benefit. In some of the London boroughs, in particular, it went extremely badly wrong and they ended up having to buy out the contracts. One assurance that I would really like this evening is that, whatever else the draft contracts say and before they are signed, if everything that can go wrong does go wrong it will not cost the public purse a barrel-load of money to buy them back—that we have learnt that lesson and that, when contractors make a mess of things and have to be bought out, account will be taken and provision will be made for that in the detail of the contracts.
	I am willing on a three-year basis to wish this experiment well, subject to the promise that, I hope, we will get from the Minister that it will be carefully monitored. It is a short-term operational plan to deal with what I think we all agree is urgent work. It is of secondary importance to launching the David Henshaw work so that we can fix the thing in the long term. Subject to those qualifications I wish the Minister well, but I hope that he will be able to give the House some of the assurances sought this evening.

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, with great respect, it is not; it is an agency of the department—which is very different.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, with respect, it is part of the department, as are the other executive agencies. Whoever holds the contract, whether that is the department or the executive agency, the important thing is how well it is negotiated and how well it is monitored. I was going to say to the noble Lord that we believe that we will be able to put in place very satisfactory contractual arrangements that will meet some of the issues that noble Lords have raised.
	Regarding contact between clients of the agency and the CSA and the issue of debt, I can reassure the noble Lord that the CSA will have a dedicated team of staff in-house which will be able to deal with client issues that arise, although, clearly, the companies who will be used to deal with debt will be very much involved in face-to-face contact with the non-resident parent. But there will be a team in the agency to which people can refer as well.
	The IT position has been well debated. The reassignment of the contract with EDS is on a much sounder footing. It is co-operating wholeheartedly in improving the system and a number of "fixes", as they are called, are taking place over two years and seem to be going well. It is steady progress and I doubt whether the system, even at the end of the two-year period, will ever achieve what was hoped to be achieved in those halcyon days when people expected so much. But it is nearer to becoming the kind of system that can be used to provide effective performance.
	On contractual obligations—the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, referred to data protection—contractors will be under the same legal considerations and the same policy operations that the agency is under. That will also be monitored. Yes, I very much agree with the noble Lord that there will be brake points and, where appropriate—although we hope that it never happens—the possibility of termination will also be written into those contracts. I very much take the point that was raised about previous local authority experience and we will want to ensure that the contracts are as tight as possible.
	As far as monitoring is concerned, there will be monthly reports. Regarding the contract in relation to debt, the companies who are successful will have to work in accordance with the code of the Credit Services Association. They will have to adhere to current legislation. My department will appoint audit and secure teams who will have access to the sites of those companies and will be able to audit their process; and there will be staff within the agency who will be part of that monitoring process. I hope that noble Lords will take it from me that there would be little point going down this route unless we were confident that we could come to satisfactory arrangements for effective monitoring, because, at the end of the day, we want to ensure that this proves to be a beneficial change of direction in policy to enable the agency to improve its performance. There is no advantage whatever to the Government in not having good contracts that are tightly monitored, with the ability to intervene if things go wrong.
	The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, asked me about the department's current efficiency programme and the implications of the agreement that has already been announced about the department's budget for the next spending review. They can best be described as challenging. There is no question but that the department is spending a lot of time and energy both in meeting the current efficiency target, which is to be measured by resource and headcount, and in terms of the future. In order to meet those challenges, the department will have to operate more smartly. I believe that we can do that, and we are setting the foundations for so doing.
	Furthermore, our approach to the operational improvement plan shows that we are able to be flexible. We are bringing in more staff to work in the agency over the next two to three years, but at the end of that period we expect the number to come down to the original headcount figure that we had in mind. I think that that is how departments should work in the future. They should be able to switch resources, identify the pressure points and move people in. At the same time, we have to look at the scale of our operations and at how we can simplify the benefits system. Clearly, the more we do that, the more straightforward the processes will become and the easier they will be to administer, but it is a big challenge.
	The noble Lord asked whether, by going down the route of using private sector companies for dedicated tasks, it could be implied that that might happen either to the agency or to the department as a whole. I can say only that we have to look at our operations. Clearly, we will learn from the lessons of the CSA and from this approach. We have to do everything we can to ensure that the staff who are working with us at the moment work as efficiently and effectively as possible, but we also have to look at other ways in which some services might be run in the future. I am confident that we can come up with a package of measures that will enable the department to meet these very challenging targets and also ensure that we provide efficient and effective services.
	The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, was concerned that the Secretary of State's responsibilities were being transferred to the contractors in clerical cases. I hope that he is reassured by the fact that I have spelt out the monitoring processes that will be used. The clerical cases are a block of cases which have arisen because of the computer problems, and I believe that they can be seen as a stand-alone issue. On that basis, we think that there is a particular advantage in using private sector contractors, and there will be safeguards. The great advantage to us is that that will release 700 agency staff who can be used for frontline responsibilities, and the main aim of that is to deal with the backlog. I understand the concerns expressed by the noble Lord but I think that there are enough safeguards in the system, through the monitoring processes that we will put in place, to reassure him that this is a reasonable course of action.
	I understand that the pilots were not location-based.

House again in Committee on Schedule 2

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: Perhaps we are on a roll here, you never know. There are some animals flying by.
	In moving Amendment No. 60, with the leave of the Committee I will speak to Amendment No. 61. It is for the convenience of the Committee that I speak to the two together; I have given advance notice both to the Chairman of Committees and the Minister. Because of matters occurring elsewhere in Europe, I decided that it would not, perhaps, be the most popular thing in the world to call Divisions on these vital matters at this time; particularly because, as the Clerk was so kind to inform us, we are now 1-0 up.
	Things nearly as important now come into play. Of course, even though I shall now move and speak to these amendments without testing the opinion of the Committee on this occasion, they remain core to my concerns about policing matters. They develop further the arguments underpinning our earlier debate on Amendment No. 14, on police mergers.
	It is essential that before the Home Secretary forces the merger of police forces, he should ensure that the changes are certain to be both cost-effective and accepted by the communities affected. Amendment No. 60 would require the Home Secretary first to obtain a cost-benefit analysis from an independent body. Amendment No. 61 would require the Home Secretary to cause a referendum to be held in every area affected by a potential merger. The Government have said that the systems already set out in the Police Act 1996 put sufficient protection in place; indeed, the Minister herself repeated that when we debated Amendment No. 14.
	The Act provides that when a Home Secretary announces a merger, there is a period of four months when objections may be submitted. The problem is that experience has shown the systems not to be robust enough under this Government's plans for mergers since last autumn. They were put in place by my right honourable friend Michael Howard, but they have certainly not been used in the way that he intended, and cannot, it currently appears, withstand the onslaught of a Government determined to proceed with mergers. Amendment No. 60 therefore provides a sensible procedure for conducting an independent cost-benefit analysis. It is surely right that there should be an independent, transparent process. It is as important that this should happen when mergers are agreed as when they are not. Agreement may be reached between the police authority and the Home Secretary, but whether the results of the merger would be cost-effective in the short or long term might still be questioned. The public should have the confidence that these matters have been properly considered.
	The Government's assessment of the costs of the currently proposed mergers is not recognised by police authorities and police forces as being anywhere near the real figure. For example, the Association of Police Authorities has estimated that the cost of mergers could be around £500 million across England and Wales. The Government belatedly announced that they were to meet the net costs of amalgamations in a budgetary letter to the chief constables at the end of March. It is clear, however, that those funds are being raided from the existing police capital budget. Resources that should have been spent on improvements in policing will now be used to pay for management consultants, merged IT systems and new headquarters. The problem is that the Home Office has not yet even made clear what it means by "net costs". Can the Minister put what is meant by that term on the record tonight?
	In any event, it is simply insufficient to offer to fund whatever the Government means by "net costs". In reality, the costs will have to be funded by recycling other portions of the Home Office grant. With the Home Office budget effectively frozen by the Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2008 onwards, the outlook for investment in level 2 services is bleak. Amalgamation will put pressure on other parts of police expenditure. Local policing is bound to suffer. In 2004, a leaked joint Home Office/strategy unit report warned:
	"Evidence from other sectors suggests that merger can be a costly, protracted exercise which does not always deliver expected benefits and inevitably causes distraction for management and staff . . . Any case for merger would need to show that the likely benefits outweigh these risks".
	My amendment simply puts that proposition into the Bill: the costs of merger should be outweighed by the benefits.
	On 8 May, a letter from a group of cross-party chairmen of police authorities representing Cheshire, Cleveland, Northamptonshire, North Wales and West Mercia was published in a number of newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph, the Independent, the Guardian, and the Financial Times. It added to that warning as follow:
	"The current proposals are being rushed through amid growing concern that they will lead to a damaging reduction in performance, a collapse in neighbourhood policing, and a significant loss of accountability. Serious questions remain about the costs and financing of mergers, the impact on council tax, the timescales for transition and the governance arrangements. Opinion polls show overwhelming public opposition, only two police authorities have volunteered to proceed with mergers . . . and some have initiated legal proceedings to halt the process".
	Indeed, we have seen that happen recently. Serious questions about costs still remain. They may only be resolved by taking the course in Amendment No. 60—an independent cost benefit analysis.
	Amendment No. 61 requires a referendum to take place before any merger may proceed. If the Government are serious when they say that they want local people to feel that they have a direct interest in local policing, this would surely be the right way to go about securing that interest and the validation of changes that are of a constitutionally significant nature. I appreciate that the Minister said earlier today that she thinks we have enough elections and do not need any more, but there are occasions when the public have a right to be consulted in an effective way. We can talk about what an effective method might be, but I suggest a referendum as the tool.
	It is clear from informal methods that have been used to test public opinion that the Government's plans for mergers are not popular in many—possibly most—areas. For example, on 12 June, East Sussex County Council announced that it had held an internet poll using the question:
	"The Government has proposed merging the Sussex and Surrey police forces. Do you support a merger?".
	That is as simple and non-prejudicial a question as one could put. The result was that 74 per cent of respondents voted no, 14 per cent voted yes and 11 per cent did not know. It attracted more than 1,100 votes, which makes it reasonably comparable with MORI and other polls.
	One is left with the concern that the Government are perhaps afraid that if they accept my amendment they would have to accept that the public do not want their merger plans. I beg to move.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: First, I commend all of those who are still with us in the debate, notwithstanding the provocation to be elsewhere, for entering into it with such vigour into it.
	Amendment No. 60, as the noble Baroness says, would, if her construct and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, were approved, give a veto on decisions about whether to alter police areas to an unidentified and unaccountable independent body. I find that surprising, bearing in mind the other areas in which she has mentioned accountability. As I said about Amendment No. 14, the role of the elected government of the day is to take strategic decisions about the policing of this country. That is certainly not a role that should be contracted out.
	Furthermore, the amendment ignores the fact that the current process of restructuring was initiated by the report from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary which, I would argue, is wholly separate from central government, police forces or police authorities—to use the terms of the amendment. Throughout its history, it has demonstrated its independence, acuity and knowledge of police services and delivery and has been of huge assistance and benefit to each Administration as it has struggled with the arduous task of producing the best quality policing possible in the time available.
	Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary report, Closing the Gap, is clear, independent evidence of the case for change. As for the cost of change, we make announcements. We have been publishing the case for each individual amalgamation, setting out the costs and benefits of merger. Those cases are informed by the independent, professional advice of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary. Our analysis of the business case is put forward by police forces and police authorities.
	As the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, has invited me to comment on it, I agree that the benefits of merger must outweigh the costs. In assessing such matters, it is right that the Home Secretary should seek independent advice from HMIC, but I return to the point that, ultimately, it is for Ministers to decide these matters—not to, effectively, pass the buck to a third party.
	Debate about who should or should not have the responsibility has been going on for more than 40 years. Noble Lords will remember that debates about whether we should restructure and who should have responsibility for that were first exposed during the previous royal commission on the police, which reported in 1962—44 years ago. Contrary to popular belief, the amalgamations of the late 1960s were not a direct product of that royal commission. The fact is that that royal commission recommended the setting up of an expert working party which would report confidentially to the Home Secretary, who would then publish the proposals. It stated at paragraph 284:
	"It is not our business to assess in detail the strength of the case for reorganising particular police forces in particular areas on the basis of larger units, but we are satisfied that there is here a problem which Her Majesty's Secretaries of State should examine as part of their duty to promote the higher standards of efficiency in the police service".
	So even the last royal commission agreed that it was for the Home Secretary of the day to decide these matters. There has been nothing to cause us to believe that that assessment was wrong. I return to the point I made previously: that Sections 32 and 34 of the Police Act 1996 already set out a well established process that contains a number of checks and balances. When the Home Secretary initiates a merger, he must give his reasons why he considers that it would be in the interests of the efficiency and effectiveness of policing. He must give notice of his proposals to the affected police and local authorities and must give them at least four months to submit objections. Thereafter, the Home Secretary must consider any objections and respond to them. Only then may he lay a draft order before Parliament, where it must be debated and thereafter approved. That is a comprehensive set of pre-conditions, and we really do not see any case for adding more.
	The use of a referendum, which forms the body of Amendment No. 61 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, is really a third scheme to change the arrangements for giving effect to the police-force amalgamations. There is a place for referendums, but in our parliamentary system they are reserved for major issues of constitutional significance such as devolution and our future relationship with the European Union. Police restructuring is not such an issue. It would be an abrogation of our duty as a Government to contract out such a matter in a referendum, as I said in response to an earlier amendment. It is for Ministers to decide these issues after taking expert advice from the inspectorate and after having listened to chief constables, police authorities and others, and for Parliament to debate them and to give its consent. We do not have government by referendum. The Home Secretary and my honourable friend Tony McNulty are continuing to explore the way forward with authorities and police officers, not least the chief constables.
	We also have a number of problems with the detail of the amendment. It would require a referendum even where the police authorities have volunteered to merge. I find that a surprising proposition. The amendment requires the Home Secretary, affected police authorities and the Electoral Commission to agree the wording of the question. What if they cannot agree? Would this mean that the referendum cannot be held? For referendums covered by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, the requirement is only for the Electoral Commission to give its views on the intelligibility of the question. There is no requirement for it to agree the question, so this would be a significant extension of its role.
	Finally, the amendment requires majority votes in each of the affected areas. If, say, two out of three areas delivered majorities in favour of a merger, why should the third area, perhaps with a much smaller population, be able to exercise a veto? The process of police-force restructuring in which we are now engaged is not unprecedented. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the then 125 police forces were reduced to the current 43. That was a far more fundamental reshaping of the police service than the one on which we have now embarked. There were no referendums then, and we see no reason for them this time around.
	I know that the noble Baroness will say that the amendment is really a stalking horse, that we will raise the whole subject of referendums so that we can just have this debate, and that I am not suggesting that the amendment is correct. I do not seek to pull the amendment apart on that basis, but shall say simply that one would have to consider a plethora of difficult testing issues if any such provision were to get off the ground. We do not think that the amendment is necessary. As I said, there needs to be an informed debate on this issue, but ultimately Governments are elected to decide such issues, and we think that that is where the responsibility should remain. I know that the noble Baroness will return to this topic at the next stage, but I thank her for indicating that the one-nil victory that she has already secured from the Government tonight will suffice. We all hope, however, that England will do a little better.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: As I am English, I hope I might do a little better at some later stage, but not quite tonight.
	I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, for her support and the Minister for her careful response and explanation of why she does not like what I have proposed. None of that was too surprising, but it is helpful because it sets out some of the issues that we will need to resolve at the next stage. She was right to say that this is a stalking horse. I am well aware of some of the deficiencies in the drafting, which I will seek to address before the next stage in October.
	On Amendment No. 60, on cost effectiveness, the noble Baroness said that I had not identified an independent body that the Home Secretary should commission. Earlier, the Government said they were dammed if they do and dammed if they don't. Here am I trying to be like John Reid, all cuddly and nice, and to offer the Home Secretary the flexibility—a word that the Government love so much—to appoint a body, provided that it is independent. The last part of my amendment says that it should not be involved in,
	"Government, police forces or police authorities".
	I give that flexibility but the Government say that it is not enough. I have not pointed out the exact body that should be nominated under the Bill.
	I give the Minister a commitment. If she will accept the earlier amendments to specify the Police Federation, the Police Superintendents' Association and ACPO as statutory consultees in the Bill, then I will try to find a body to specify in this amendment and bring it back for that delectation.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: If HMIC had been given the brief that we seek—that it should carry out a full cost/benefit analysis—it might have taken the debate further forward. I did not notice the noble Baroness in her response define what the Government meant by net costs. It may be that she has a note there and wishes to refer to it. I will have to wait.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I am grateful to the Minister. She has now highlighted one of the major issues of concern. There is a great difference between the Government's judgment on what comprises a cost and a benefit and the judgment of the police authorities and police forces. The briefing on police restructuring from the West Mercia Police Authority, under "Costs and Council Tax", makes the point:
	"The funding of a new regional police force has yet to be settled. Council Tax for policing is currently much lower in the West Midlands conurbation than in the rest of the region. Council Tax equalisation is essential, but how this will be achieved and over what period is still unknown. Abolition and merger will be costly. Estimates of costs and savings have varied considerably. Set up costs have been recently estimated by the Home Office at both £51 million and £57 million. Calculations of net annual savings arising from the proposals have also varied widely, from £15.3 million to £26 million per annum. Whether that level of saving will be realised in practice is unknown".
	Earlier, when we dealt with Amendment No. 14, we debated the federated model. In a contribution to the police reform debate, the Association of Police Authorities, in a paper called Joining Forces, published in January 2006, stated:
	"The federated model will avoid many of the revenue and capital costs and risks associated with the large scale restructuring of forces, while providing greater flexibility in the approach to generating efficiencies in corporate functions. It may therefore represent a more affordable option for addressing the protective services deficit than forced mergers".
	If I were confident that the Government were prepared to look at those costs at the same time as they carry on their discussions this summer, I would feel happier about withdrawing these amendments, as I am about to do. The difficulty is that the Minister says that her right honourable friend Dr Reid and her honourable friend Mr McNulty are now exploring ways forward whereas, as we said earlier, yesterday, on the Floor of the House in another place, the Home Secretary made it clear that the destination stays the same. It is all very well listening, but if one will not change one's mind about where one goes, what does it matter?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My right honourable friend the Home Secretary made it clear that on the basis of the information that we have, especially the HMIC advice, that road of travel is inevitable and the destination is absolutely secure. The question is how quickly can we go along that road and what do we need to do to ensure that that delivery eventually takes place? We have no evidence to indicate that that road of travel—set out so clearly by HMIC and so cogently argued by the current Inspector of Constabulary—is not the right road.
	The noble Baroness will know that all Governments have to behave responsibly. I know that she would criticise us greatly if we had cogent advice from the best source of information available to any government but we failed and/or refused to listen to it without there being good reasons for departing from that advice. I therefore make it clear that my right honourable friend has accepted the advice from HMIC and accepted the road of travel. What is in issue is probably how quickly we can get there bearing in mind the need to take a number of people with us. That is a different thing.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: There is no difference in the long run. In practice, mergers by 2007 were going to be very difficult to achieve. We are simply seeing them put off perhaps to 2008. But we end up with the same result.
	I know that HMIC does extremely valuable work. This report has aroused much interest and has been criticised in parts. All I have said throughout is that there are other sources of information that the Government should also take seriously, one of which is from the Association of Police Authorities and the police forces themselves which have the day-to-day experience of what is required in local areas. They feel that the federation model has not been given a fair run, a model that was not ruled out by the HMIC report. But I certainly do not wish to re-run that part of the debate which we had earlier today. I was seeking to look forward to the slightly different aspect of cost effectiveness.
	Perhaps I may turn briefly to Amendment No. 61, which refers to the need to hold referendums locally. The Minister replied in the same vein as the reply given to my honourable friend in another place; namely, that the drafting of the amendment is defective. I have to confess that I purposely chose it to be so because I knew that I did not wish to press it to a Division today. I accept entirely what she said about the wording of the question to be put in the referendum; that is, that it would extend to an unusual extent the role of the Electoral Commission.
	The Minister also referred to the fact that there would be a referendum even if a merger is agreed. I suppose one could ask: why shouldn't a small area be able to prevent a merger? Indeed, on the argument that I made earlier on Amendment No. 14, it may well be that a police authority in a small area, be it Gloucestershire or West Mercia, ought to be able to say: "No, we feel this is not right for us and it should not go ahead". I therefore suspect that when the amendment comes back the Minister will see little change. On the Electoral Commission, however, I assure her that I shall seek some redrafting before re-presenting it to the House. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendment No. 61 not moved.]

Baroness Harris of Richmond: The amendment, which is also in the name of my noble friend Lord Dholakia, would remove paragraphs 23 to 25. Under those paragraphs, the Secretary of State would set police authorities' strategic priorities. We are talking again about strategic priorities, currently a major power for police authorities. Those provisions pose a threat. If one political party is dominant—less so now than in recent years, although still broadly the case—it might abuse the powers in the Bill to set policing priorities to its own advantage and to suit its own political agenda. We must imagine these powers in the hands of unreasonable people, not of reasonable, liberal people. In the end, the only civil liberties that matter are those that protect us against governments doing unreasonable things that we did not expect when those powers were drafted. We have been down this road before and were accused of being—what was the word the Minister used?

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I am momentarily distracted by the news I have just heard—the score is one all.
	I support Amendment No. 62. We have no objection to national governments setting national priorities for policing. That is partly what they are there to do, after all. The power to which we object is that which would impose particular priorities on police authorities at a local level. That is exactly the subject of the noble Baroness's amendment.
	The Government have claimed that the Bill introduces a more flexible system—back to flexibility. However, it is flexibility for the Government to increase their control over policing—it is not flexibility for others. The amendment highlights the key elements of the Government's intent in the Bill. There is a small but significant change of emphasis under the schedule. Heretofore, the Government have been able to set objectives for police authorities, but the Bill now makes a subtle but important change. It sets strategic priorities. There is a big difference between saying to an authority that it has an overall objective to do something and saying that it has strategic priorities. That suggests that there is a greater drilling down and more influence on what individual police authorities can do. The crux of the debate is whether the provision is a centralising measure. We say that it is.
	The concept of safer neighbourhood teams, the basic command units and the crime and disorder reduction partnerships form an element of localism. Above that, strategic priorities must lie behind what the individual organisations want to achieve with the resources that are allocated to them. The schedule shows that the balance of power is firmly with the Secretary of State, not local organisations that, in some ways, reflect local aspirations and policing needs. The influence will come from the centre, not from local neighbourhood communities.
	Safer neighbourhood teams can work very well indeed. Given their resources, however, there are limits to what they can achieve, and they should certainly not be subject to directives from central government. The emphasis on setting strategic priorities rather than broad objectives is extremely important and in many ways goes to the heart of the debate on centralisation throughout the Bill. The strategic priorities are set from the centre, and the safer neighbourhood teams and all the locally oriented organisations are subject to such objectives which override the local priorities.
	The measure is an important shift in direction which changes the dynamic. It puts much greater emphasis on and gives more influence to the Secretary of State and takes away power from local bodies. In fact, setting strategic objectives takes power away from neighbourhoods and local communities and vests it in the centre. It means that priorities are driven by the Government rather than by the local teams on the ground. As that is not acceptable, we support the amendment.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: Amendment No. 62 would remove yet further provisions from Schedule 2—in this case, paragraphs 23 to 25, which, among other things, repeal the requirement on the Home Secretary to issue an annual national policing plan. Under current legislation, each year the Home Secretary produces a national policing plan for the following three years. The national policing plan sets the strategic direction for the police service for the medium term and the year ahead and establishes the performance framework, including any indicators or targets against which police performance would be measured and compared. The national policing plan needs to be published by 30 November each year.
	Last November, we published for the first time a national community safety plan setting out the community safety priorities for 2006–09 and incorporating the national policing plan. This new plan recognised that the delivery of community safety required a multi-agency approach and could not be delivered solely by the police. To this end, the Bill will remove the inflexible requirement to produce a national policing plan. In future, we will issue the national community safety plan on a non-statutory basis. However, the Home Secretary will still retain the ability, under new Section 37A of the Police Act, inserted by paragraph 24 of the Schedule, to set "strategic priorities".
	Given the Home Secretary's overarching responsibility for maintaining an efficient and effective police service throughout England and Wales, we argue—and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, accepts this—that the Home Secretary has an entirely legitimate role in setting broad national strategic priorities to which police authorities should have regard. It is already the case that the Home Secretary can set "objectives" for police authorities in legislation. That goes back to the previous Government—to 1996 and to the Police and Magistrates' Courts Act 1994. This is not a change of substance; it is merely a change of language.
	I see nothing sinister in this and I cannot understand why the noble Baronesses opposite should see anything perverse or peculiar in the wording of the Bill. It is a simple change in terminology. The strategic priorities that we set will be little different from former objectives. I am not a thesaurus expert, but they do not seem to be a million miles apart in their terminology. There is no power to impose new priorities; the requirement on police authorities is simply to have regard to those priorities. I am puzzled, especially because the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, is a member of a party that, in government, introduced the concept of national policing plans. While at the time I might have had some questions about whether this was a centralising feature of Mr Howard's approach to policing, one could argue that national policing plans and priorities have served us very well.
	Earlier, the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, praised arrangements that were put in place in the 1990s to make police authorities more effective in setting priorities and objectives and so on and in working with the Home Secretary to that end. We think that that element of the legislation has worked very well, and I am surprised that the wording here has raised such strange concerns. We think that this is a very straightforward and simple matter. It is a question of language and no more than that.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: In moving Amendment No. 63, I shall speak to the other amendments in the group that are in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Dholakia. The amendments would remove the extraordinary powers given to the Secretary of State in this Bill. Not only will he be able to interfere when he feels that a police authority is failing, but he will be able to interfere when he is satisfied that the whole or any part of a police force will fail to discharge its functions in an effective manner. It is extraordinary in a Bill to give the Secretary of State the power to act on a prediction of whether a police authority or force is going to fail. We need to understand more closely exactly what the powers of the Secretary of State will entail and how they will be used.
	We have several concerns about the power of intervention. The first is whether a new power is needed. The existing powers of intervention have not been used since they were introduced four years ago, in 2002. An agreed protocol is in place for forces that are in need of assistance, and it works well in practice. Indeed, in 2004 a previous Home Secretary directed Humberside's police authority to sack the then chief constable, David Westwood. When the authority said that he should remain, the Home Secretary was able to show in court that he had exercised his existing powers properly to direct that the chief constable be removed. Given that, what is the need for new powers?
	The second issue is whether it is right for the Home Secretary to take new powers to intervene not just in the police authority but directly with the chief police officer without reference to the police authority. Such a provision might create direct accountability between the chief police officer and the Secretary of State, which might interfere with the operational independence of the chief officer and undermine the tripartite relationship. The creation of fewer chief officers runs the enhanced risk that they will be increasingly answerable not to their local police authorities but to the Home Secretary.
	Thirdly, there is the issue of whether the test that is applied is adequate. After all, the proposal relates to a serious principle, where a police force is failing to such an extent that it merits direct executive action through the Home Secretary's intervention. The problem is that the Bill's wording is effectively subjective; it is a subjective test. The Bill states:
	"Where the Secretary of State is satisfied that the whole or any part of a police force is failing to discharge . . . its functions . . . he may direct . . . the chief officer . . . the police authority . . . or . . . both of them"
	to remedy the failure. Such a provision effectively allows the Secretary of State to act as judge and jury in his own right.
	We seek either reassurance on this point or some mechanism to prescribe more closely the circumstances in which the Home Secretary would be able to intervene; otherwise we would be creating a sweeping power to enable future intervention. However, there is nothing in the Bill to ensure that these powers will be used only as a last resort. They could be used entirely according to the Home Secretary's judgment about whether a force was behaving effectively. Unfortunately, we cannot rely on assurances given by Ministers that powers are intended to be used only as a last resort when they are drawn in such a way that they could enable significant additional intervention in circumstances that we could not foresee.
	The remaining amendments are intended to tighten up the current provisions in the Bill. They make it clear that a failure must be serious and permanent, and that the intervention must be an exceptional one. They further make it clear that such an intervention will be used only as a last resort. When a provision allows the Secretary of State to take powers directly to intervene in the running of police forces, not just police authorities, that gives rise to real concerns that it is effectively a centralising measure. We need to understand how those measures are intended to be used and we need to be reassured that the Bill will allow them to be used only in exceptional circumstances. I beg to move.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I support all the amendments to which I have added my name and, after the superb speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, I add my support to her amendments also. The Bill would give Ministers greater powers to interfere in operational policing matters. I agree entirely with what the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, has just said: it is not right for the Secretary of State to micromanage. It is not where his powers should lie, it is not where his ability lies and it should not be the main thrust of his part in the tripartite relationship.
	That is the case simply because policing should not be politicised. I feel sure that the Minister would agree with that. The police must be able to remain free from that. They must be able to investigate crime independently and apply the laws passed by Parliament free from party-political pressure. The amendments are a sensible and constructive response. The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, talked about her constructive approach, and that is exactly what she has underlined. The amendments reflect the deep concern expressed about the powers to be conferred on the Secretary of State to direct the chief officers of the police. ACPO puts it concisely:
	"This is an unprecedented and seismic shift in the balance of roles and responsibilities within the tri-partite relationship and must be withdrawn".
	The Home Secretary should not have the power to intervene on his own initiative in a way that interferes in failing police forces and police authorities. That is where the difficulty lies. It looks as though the Government are trying to get through the back door the provisions that they failed to get through the front door in our debates on the Police Reform Act 2002. I recall those debates as a member of another team at the time. I was lucky enough to be given this job just as the Police Reform Act was being passed from House to House in what we fondly call ping-pong. On the occasion when I was invited to take up this job, I was told, "In 10 days' time you have the Second Reading of the asylum Bill and, by the way, next week there is the ping-pong of the Police Reform Bill". Fortunately for me, my colleagues who had been involved in that dealt with the majority of the ping-pong. What was important at that stage was that the Government rode back from the position that they had taken on the intervention powers of the Secretary of State in policing matters, and they were right to do so. I say as softly as I can that the Home Secretary is mistaken in seeking to go forward now.
	Schedule 2 could create direct accountability between the chief officer and the Secretary of State, which could thereby interfere with the operational independence of the chief officer and undermine that valuable tripartite relationship. The creation of fewer chief officers, which we may well see, runs the extra risk that they are increasingly answerable not to the local police authorities but to the Home Secretary. If power is exercised in that way, I expect that the trend will be enforced. We also must consider whether the test to be applied is adequate. The proposal relates to the serious principle that a police force is failing to such an extent that it justifies direct executive action by the Government. The problem is that the way in which the Bill is drafted makes the decision effectively a subjective one, because it states:
	"Where the Secretary of State is satisfied that the whole or a part of a police force will fail to discharge . . . its functions . . . he may direct . . . the chief officer . . . the police authority . . . or . . . both of them",
	to remedy the failure. That leaves the Home Secretary as judge and jury in his own case.
	It is not simply enough to say that the powers will be reserved. Paragraph 101 of the Explanatory Notes states:
	"Subsection (4)(a) to (d) of new section 40 is intended to ensure that the power to give directions is only used as a last resort".
	That is simply not what the Bill says. Nothing in the Bill restricts the use of such a strong power of intervention. The power can be used entirely according to the Home Secretary's judgment about whether a force is acting effectively. The Minister may well repeat the assurances given by her colleagues in another place and say that the wide power will be used with great restraint, as a last resort. I gently have to say that that will not be good enough for me. Her assurance is always taken by me as a serious matter and binds her as an honourable person, as I know, but it does not bind future Home Secretaries or Governments. If it were mine, we would be so bound on this matter, but we know not what will happen.
	We should not leave in the Bill powers that could be misused. My preference is that they should be removed entirely. If that is not possible, I have been strongly persuaded by the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Henig. She has done a great service to this House in every respect. Between her, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, we have three people here who know more about the workings of the police authorities than, I suspect, the whole of the rest of the House and perhaps another place put together. I listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, with great care. She made some extremely powerful arguments, particularly with regard to this being a power of last resort and the danger that we have with the drafting of the Bill. She is right that it should be a very narrow ground on which the Home Secretary might intervene. I had thought that we could not have anything in the Bill but if she could work with the Minister to find a definition of that narrow ground, that would be productive. I say so without having consulted my colleagues in another place because they have not had the benefit of hearing the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, so I may find myself not doing this job tomorrow, with more free time and more work/life balance—who knows?
	It would be very constructive if we could find a way of defining the scope so that cases are few and far between and are specified. The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, is right to say that intervention is not effective without consultation and co-operation with the national bodies, the police authorities and the chief officers. She cited practical examples of how that can work, provided that you work through the local bodies that should deliver the quality of service.
	We have come to one of the most important parts of the Bill. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, says that this is the most important part. I can sympathise and say, yes, I agree with her, regarding this part of the Bill. However, I also have to look at the rest of the Bill—a portmanteau Bill into which the Government have shoved a heck of a lot of other things. My colleagues are interested in extradition, and Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons would not be pleased with me if I agreed with the noble Baroness and said that this is the most important part of the Bill. However, she is right to identify this part of the Bill. We need to get this right if the Bill is to serve this country well.

Lord Dholakia: I was not going to intervene. However, I have been so engrossed by the wonderful argument put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, and by my noble friend Lady Harris and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, that, despite England winning 2-1, I would much rather be in this Chamber to listen to and support my colleagues than go round and see what is going on at the other end.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I know that the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, has always been a favoured son of this House, but perhaps I may say that he has given a great deal of pleasure to a few people who are still labouring in the vineyard away from the goods.
	I endorse what has been said about the care with which the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, and my noble friend Lady Henig have approached these issues. I acknowledge straight away that they have a wealth of experience. As I have already indicated, the Government have listened and will listen carefully to what they have said. I can reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, of that. Before I deal with the meat of the amendments, I should make it clear that we believe that this is a power of last resort.
	Perhaps I may say how difficult it is to concentrate on winning this Bill when things are changing so rapidly in another place—and I do not mean the other House.
	Improvement of the police authority and all the things that we have put in place to make performance better will make a huge contribution to the way in which things work. I also understand what my noble friend says about accepting that an appropriate time to intervene is when there is evidence from an independent source such as an inquiry and also when there is an HMIC recommendation; and that she wishes to see a narrowing down of the issues upon which this power can be used. I want to make it plain that I absolutely understand her concern. I hope that in going through the detail, which may take a little time, I shall be able to reassure each noble Baroness that their concerns are not merited. I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, on her sterling perseverance in opening this group of amendments.
	The intervention powers, as everyone has acknowledged, are to be a last resort to require policing failings to be addressed. The rationale for the Government's revisions to the existing powers is based on experience gained since the inception of the original powers and from our work supporting under-performing forces. Although I appreciate the position that existed in 2002, and as the noble Baronesses will know, a number of significant events have occurred since then which have made us all review the situation slightly differently.
	We recognise that these powers are not to be used lightly. I reiterate that they are steps of last resort to be taken only when serious and enduring performance problems have arisen. However, where performance problems are persistent and the service that the public are receiving is being affected, it is important that expeditious steps are taken to remedy it. These changes are being brought about on account of what has been learnt about police performance over the past few years. We now have a clearer understanding of what needs to be in place to ensure that all forces strive for continuous improvement and to ensure that those with the most serious problems are dealt with most effectively.
	Effective intervention powers must be in place to ensure that appropriate action can be taken when a police area or police authority is taking too long to show an acceptable level of performance improvement, when it simply does not have the capability to address the problems itself, or, in the most extreme and unusual cases, when it refuses to co-operate to remedy its failings.
	These revisions are about ensuring that the powers are framed so as to provide the most focused and effective response to performance failings in both police forces and police authorities. The revisions are intended merely to improve the processes and procedures surrounding the use of the powers to ensure that they serve as an effective lever of continuous performance improvement.
	Amendment No. 63 would remove all the proposed changes to the intervention powers. That would overlook the key role that intervention powers play in driving up police performance and the changes needed to frame the powers most effectively. I listened very carefully to what the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said and noted that she has been persuaded by my noble friend to indicate that that course may not be necessary.
	Amendments Nos. 64, 65, 74 and 75 seek, in the first instance, to propose a definition for the level of performance failing that would lead to intervention for failure that was "serious and permanent". Furthermore, that intervention would occur only "exceptionally" and "if there was no alternative". I appreciate that there is value in seeking to clarify the terms of performance failing that would serve as the threshold for intervention, but we are not convinced by the proposed wording.
	I agree, too, that we should be talking about intervention in "serious" cases but I do not believe that we would want to wait for the failing to be "permanent" before we were prepared to act. The powers are intended to be used in cases of "significant or enduring" failings in circumstances when not acting would leave communities with an unacceptable and lasting level of poor service. However, I am not convinced that adding such a definition to the Bill would enhance the powers in the way that we intend. What would happen if the failing was significant but had yet to be proven to be enduring, but authoritative voices said that if immediate remedial action was not taken, the failing would become enduring?
	A number of safeguards are already built into the Bill to ensure that a power of direction is issued only when failings of effectiveness have been identified and the area has already had sufficient information and time to address them. This is so that intervention takes place only in the most exceptional circumstances and when all other alternatives have been attempted—for example, through an engagement by the Police Standards Unit. But I am not inclined to agree that it is necessary or helpful to add such further provisos to the Bill.
	Amendments Nos. 66, 67, 69 and 70 propose that we remove the revision which would enable the Secretary of State to route the powers direct to the chief officer of the force in respect of police forces that are failing or that will fail. The revision is not about bypassing the police authority or the police authority's important role in holding forces to account for their performance; it is about reflecting the reality of how best to tackle performance problems by dealing directly with those who are able to enact the changes that are needed to address them.
	The revision is also intended to allow us to act on behalf of a police authority, should it so wish, in the event that it would prefer us to deal directly with the chief officer. These provisions are intended to ensure that the most effective action can be taken to address the serious failings. So we oppose the amendments which seek to remove these clauses, but we do not dismiss the importance that noble Lords have attached to them.
	Amendment No. 79 would remove the provision that requires the Secretary of State to notify the police authority responsible for maintaining a police force when he has given a direction directly to the chief officer of the police force concerned. This provision has been included in the Bill to ensure that police authorities are kept informed if the Secretary of State is left with no option other than to give a direction to the chief officer of the relevant police force. We believe that it is right that this option should remain a part of the Bill. It is important to make a provision to ensure that a police authority is informed from the outset of any decision to intervene. I agree with my noble friend Lady Henig about the importance of collaborative working.
	I now turn to my noble friend's Amendments Nos. 68 and 76, which seek to limit the possible sources of information. The amendments propose that the trigger for the use of these powers be either an inspectorate report or an inquiry established under Section 49 of the Police Act, which finds that the force or police authority, or part of it, is failing to discharge any of its functions. One of the changes brought forward in the Bill is to widen the sources of information which the Secretary of State might examine when considering whether a force or authority is failing. The amendment recognises that it is not the inspectorate alone that might provide such a view I am afraid that it is still unhelpful to restrict the possible sources of information that might shed light on serious police failings.
	First, we are not convinced that it is necessarily helpful to seek to produce a definitive list of organisations and voices which can inform the Secretary of State. Naturally, we can see that that might be desirable, and I understand that the Secretary of State's decision should be informed by authoritative and credible accounts of police effectiveness and performance.
	The formulation used in the amendments, if I may gently say so to my noble friend, overlooks other agencies or bodies, which might cast the spotlight on failings or performances—things that I know she knows very well. Examples might include an Independent Police Complaints Commission report or one of the now annual police performance assessments, which combine the performance data with the inspectorate's quality of view. That would be of assistance. There would inevitably be others that we cannot foresee today, and we believe that it is unhelpful to try to set out a specific list of bodies.
	Secondly, the amendment overlooks the fact that the new inspectorate will not be required to report on the efficiency and effectiveness or otherwise of the police forces and authorities. I understand the purpose of my noble friend's amendment. I understand her concern, and I think that it will be important for us to continue to talk about these issues. I reassure noble Lords that we have taken these issues into account.
	There are similar comments in relation to Amendments Nos. 71 and 77—and, indeed, to Amendments Nos. 72, 73 and 78. I am conscious that it is almost 10 o'clock, so I say in conclusion that although I understand the nature of the concerns and the need to work on the issue, we think that we have the balance about right. We shall not use it inappropriately. I can see that it is an area in which it may benefit us to have further discussions between now and Report. I cannot say that they will necessarily bring about material changes, but we would benefit from having those discussions. I do not believe that we are far apart. I believe that my noble friend's indications are that she accepts that other sources may give real cause for concern.
	My noble friend accepts that it should be in extremis but she says clearly that there has to be some sort of agreed line which makes sure that it is in extremis and not part of day-to-day practice, which we are absolutely clear it should not be. With that, I invite noble Lords not to press the amendment, not because I am guaranteeing that we will come back with anything else, but because it is an issue on which we could speak.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: The noble Baroness has been very helpful in her response, but there is still a gulf between us. When she talks about the directions being used in extremis, that is one part of the equation. Even if there were a way of defining carefully on the face of the Bill what that situation would be, there is still the other aspect that was spoken to so well by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, about the directions being delivered locally and not dealt with in a subjective way by the Secretary of State.
	So it is not the whole of the equation.
	It might be helpful if I indicate that, although I shall keep the opposition to Schedule 2 on the Marshalled List for debate on another day, the Minister has done enough to persuade me that I should not now divide on that, which I had originally intended to because I have such concerns about a range of issues in Schedule 2. On this particular group of amendments, however, the way that the Minister has offered discussions in the summer means that it would be wrong of me to divide when we have that debate.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: I am enormously grateful to both the noble Baronesses, Lady Anelay and Lady Henig, who have included in their speeches exactly what I would have wanted to say. The existing powers have not been used. We still feel that it is not necessary to give more power to the Secretary of State. The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, said that the tripartite structure was at the centre of what we are talking about and that the Home Secretary must not micromanage, but intervene through police authorities. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said that the police must remain independent, free of party-political pressures.
	I, too, recognise what the Minister has said tonight. I am most grateful for her long explanation of the Government's position. However, we have serious concerns which she has recognised. It would be enormously helpful if we could discuss where we might go from here. I certainly hear that she cannot promise anything, but there is perhaps a little room for manoeuvre.
	We will certainly be coming back to these amendments on Report. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

A message was received from the Commons that they concur with the Lords message of 19June.
	House adjourned at four minutes past ten o'clock.